The Three Truths of Product Development

It doesn’t matter whether the product is hardware or software, a consumer or industrial product, or a durable or consumable good, no matter what the product, there are three fundamental truths that govern the success or failure of any product:

1 - A product is just a wrapper for a solution:

Successful products must either solve a person’s problem or improves their happiness; if neither of these are true the product is a solution looking for a problem and will not succeed long term.

2 - People buy solutions, not products:

A product at it’s core must deliver value in a clear, direct and simple way; if the product cannot communicate this clearly, or is overly complicated and difficult to use, or loaded down with “features” that are not related to it’s core value proposition, it will not succeed long term.

3 - Product development is a team sport:

Product development is not owned by any one function, it needs to be owned across the entire organization and become a core function of the entire organization, supported by the appropriate accountabilities and incentives to insure alignment.