Originally posted on Proof of Concept
People fantasize about the ideal experience of working on product—blue sky 0-to-1 work. The reality is this only possible when starting a new company. From that moment on, you are accruing debt: technical, design, and business debt. The reality of joining a company to lead product is the equivalent of getting on a train at its full speed. You can’t simply hit the brakes because so many dependencies are in motion. I’ll share with you my framework for product prioritization and triage when starting somewhere with a lot of existing momentum.
Product frameworks
Like JavaScript libraries and Land Before Time sequels, there are an abundant amount of product frameworks that exists: MoSCoW, Kano Model, RICE Scoring, Buy a Feature, Eisenhower Matrix, Hypothesis-Driven Development, etc. Though these frameworks are effective and best practices, it can be overwhelming and lead to unnecessary debate on which to use. My hypothesis is the more mature a framework is it feels like a process decision vs. getting value out of it.
Because of this, it feels simpler to use a framework when you make one up. Even with a non-standard name it feels less of a weight in adopting it. The product prioritization framework I like to run with people focuses on four core areas: Invest, Ignore, De-emphasize, and Deprecate.
The goal of this framework is to orient the moving train and get people oriented in the right direction. The intention of it is to be ephemeral and provide a triage list of priorities. I’ll break down the four areas in more detail.
Invest
Whether it’s product or people, I’m a believer of doubling down on strengths and what’s working. Focusing on that provides continued value as you refine the weaker areas. Identify the areas in the product that are working well—where customers love and it generates revenue to scale the business. Once you do, pump the gas. This can also mean investing in areas that don’t exist or need additional attention to scale. It should have signals of potential through feedback and data to make a well-informed investment.
Ignore
When I say ignore, it’s not a bad thing. In fact, things are working well enough where it doesn’t require top attention. This might be a product feature that is flat in growth. Despite having potential, it may not be the top of the priorities you’d invest in. Keep the lights on, monitor, maintain, and support these items. As you make progress on investment areas, it’s typical to see things that were once in the ignore bucket become investment areas.
De-emphasize
This is when you have house guests coming over in an hour and you shove things in the closet to get it out of sight. You need them, but they are detractors from the experience. These are the eyesores that you can’t get rid of just yet. It may be a service you don’t want to scale but it’s important to keep for existing customers. De-emphasize applies to bloated information architecture to improve navigation of your site. There are more things de-emphasized in product experiences than you might imagine. Join any startup and ask how many product SKUs they have.
Deprecate
As you go through the first three areas, this is the end of the line. It’s clear there are features or services you need to deprecate and say goodbye to. The saying that it’s harder to remove features than add them is completely true, but you still have to do it from time-to-time if it means the right priority for the business and the product. These features get pruned and should never return.
Using this framework
The beauty of this framework is you can use it whenever you need to triage a massive initiative. It’s not a detailed roadmap of what to do. It’s like drawing a map in the sand in the battle field to get people oriented to the new strategy.
You could use this as a personal audit as you plan the first 30 days of a new role; share your point of view. It might be in a cross-functional workshop to get other experts in the company to weigh in. Give this a try and let me know what you think, or create your own!