Product of Theseus - NIDC2020

Presentation for NI Developer Conference 2020.
https://www.nidevconf.com/sessions/heather-mcnamee/

Do you need to create a clear vision of why your product exists and where it’s going, grounded in the reality of what it does, why, and for what audience? If you’re building products - you’ll find this talk helpful.

Ship of Theseus is a thought experiment about a boat that leaves on a journey and during that voyage, it’s continually mended. When it arrives as its destination, every part has been replaced. This results in a philosophical question: Is it still the same boat?

Transcript

1. The Product
   of Theseus
   Heather McNamee - 

   Open Strategy Partners
   NI Developer Conference 2020
   

   View Slide

2. Heather McNamee
   Client operations & Content strategy
   
   Contact me @nearlythere
   heather@openstrategypartners.com
   
   About me
   

   View Slide

3. Connect Grow
   Communicate
   

   View Slide

4. How do you express…
   
   the value of your product
   
   in a way that is grounded in
   evidence
   
   to help users be successful?
   

   View Slide

5. Hey, there!
   
   Help us help people
   
   to use our product, pls.
   

   View Slide

6. OK!
   
   First, I gotta know…
   
   Who is it for?
   
   What do they do with it?
   
   Why?
   

   View Slide

7. Oh… uh… isn’t that your job?
   

   View Slide

8. Cool cool cool!!
   
   

   View Slide

9. My mental model of “a product feature”
   Affordances, attributes, states, contexts, purpose, outcomes.
   

   View Slide

10. How do I find this out?
    Where to start….
    

    View Slide

11. How do I find this out?
    

    View Slide

12. interview and
    
    observe users
    interview
    
    product team
    analyse
    
    product,
    
    docs, code
    interview
    
    stakeholders,
    
    sales, c-level
    

    View Slide

13. Sometimes it gets weird
    

    View Slide

14. Scary things I’ve seen
    • Surprised by their own users! BOO!
    
    • Sales selling things that don’t event exist. Ghosts!
    
    • Painful workarounds that break in new versions.
    
    • Features that don’t even get used.
    
    • Losing to competition who are better at communication.
    
    • No one even knowing what a product actually does, for whom, and why.
    

    View Slide

15. Zen koan:
    
    If there’s a feature
    
    But no one uses it…
    
    Does it even exist?
    

    View Slide

16. What even is a product?
    

    View Slide

17. View Slide

18. Is this a boat?
    Displace water ✅
    Cannot
    move!
    Cannot
    control
    direction!
    

    View Slide

19. What even is a boat?
    Displace water ✅
    An oar
    or a sail!
    A rudder
    or a keel!
    Can propel ✅
    Control
    direction ✅
    

    View Slide

20. Affordances of boats
    Displace water ✅
    Semi-enclosed ✅
    

    View Slide

21. So…
    
    what does this say
    
    about products?
    

    View Slide

22. With each feature, someone had to decide….
    
    Does this feature belong in this product?
    
    Who is it for?
    
    What are they doing with it?
    
    And why?
    

    View Slide

23. What is the underlying
    
    drive and purpose?
    

    View Slide

24. It’s seaworthy ✅
    It’s commemorative ✅
    It continues a tradition ✅
    SUCCESSFUL PIVOT!
    

    View Slide

25. How do you make decisions
    
    about product direction?
    
    How do you express this
    
    to stakeholders,
    
    decision makers and users?
    

    View Slide

26. Value Map
    Target
    Audience
    Trust &
    Vibrancy
    Signals
    Buyer’s
    Journey
    Editorial Plan
    Channels &
    Asset Plan
    Strategic
    Narrative
    Personas
    OSP Strategic Framework
    

    View Slide

27. Value Map: What it is
    what it does, and the value it delivers
    

    View Slide

28. Living documentation containing an inventory of all
    features and benefits of a product, expressed as
    value statements.
    Value Map - What it is.
    

    View Slide

29. Clarify, build consensus, enhance understanding:
    
    ● what our product IS and
    
    ● what it DOES and
    
    ● what VALUE it delivers
    
    ● … in a series of value statements.
    Value Map - What it does.
    

    View Slide

30. ● Living documentation and
    ● Single source of truth of product and service
    features, using
    ● Agreed-upon language for all stakeholders.
    Value Map - Value it Delivers.
    

    View Slide

31. ● Feature - Atomic unit of
    functionality or attribute.
    ● Activity - How you apply the
    feature in a workflow or
    process.
    ● Benefit - The positive result of
    applying a feature.
    
    = Value Statement
    Anatomy of a Value Statement
    Value Statement
    Benefit
    Activity
    Feature
    

    View Slide

32. ● Clear vision of the components
    = clear positioning of the
    platform.
    
    ● The positioning statement
    articulates the fundamental
    essence of value statements
    that comprise a product.
    Positioning Statement Product Positioning Statement
    Value Statement
    Feature
    Area/Activity
    Benefit
    Value Statement
    Value Statement
    Value Statement
    

    View Slide

33. Results from qualitative survey of users in the developer persona.
    • “We develop our Most
    Products with Symfony.
    Now we want a CMS
    with Symfony.”
    
    • “Sulu is a Symfony
    bundle without blocking
    access to Symfony. So
    there is great Symfony
    integration.”
    
    • “Symfony Full Stack,
    use our own business
    logic.”
    Case example: Sulu - full-stack Symfony CMS
    • “innovative backend”

    • “Beautiful backend
    for content managers.”
    
    • “Intuitive modern
    admin UI yet powerful
    developer
    experience.”
    
    • “very nice structured
    admin. good UX/UI”
    • “The enormous flexibility,
    lightning-fast support,
    simplicity of usage for
    content managers”
    
    • "How easy it is to setup
    a simple website and
    keep focus on custom
    development instead of
    template development”
    
    • “Easy extensibility using
    custom entities”
    

    View Slide

34. The Value Map Workflow
    7. Get to work! (VM is always WIP)
    1: Industry
    Research
    2. M
    arket-Level C
    ues
    3: W
    orkshops
    / Interview
    s
    4: Value
    M
    ap
    M
    odelling
    5. Value
    M
    ap
    Drafting
    6. Feedback
    &
    Iterate
    

    View Slide

35. Examples of value statements
    Value Statement
    Benefit
    Activity
    Feature
    Sulu’s innovative, beautiful backend
    provides a modern admin UI to
    simplify your app’s user
    experience.
    good user experience
    build your app with Sulu
    Flexibility to extend your own
    custom entities and business logic
    to seamlessly integrate with
    Symfony applications.
    seamless integration
    integrate with Symfony applications
    custom entities
    modern admin UI
    

    View Slide

36. Sulu’s Guides
    • Show newcomers how to be
    successful.
    
    • Content for mixed audiences
    (decision making unit).
    
    • Employ the language of the
    users.
    
    • Learn from the experiences of
    other happy users.
    https://sulu.io/guides
    Examples of using it in content strategy
    

    View Slide

37. Authentic Communication: Compelling & Accurate
    Empathy Clarity
    Trust
    The Value Map
    helps create
    accurate
    content, with
    clear and
    consistent
    language.
    Authentic
    Communication
    

    View Slide

38. What’s Your Story?
    hello@openstrategypartners.com
    Heather McNamee
    
    heather@openstrategypartners.com
    

    View Slide

39. @nearlythere
    https://nearlythere.com/2018/05/30/why-draw-your-next-presentation/
    

    View Slide

40. What do you consider part of your product?
    The CLI, the UI, Docs, Services, Support, Marketing…
    

    View Slide

41. How do I find this out?
    Where is this information?
    • In the product?
    
    • In a feature list?
    
    • The documentation?
    
    • In a series of shared (very long) internal process docs
    that Jill used to maintain, but she moved to another
    team. And just no one knows anymore.
    

    View Slide