We live in an era where digital products have become crucial to our daily lives because they help us solve problems like organizing our tasks, improving our time, connecting with people in different ways, and learning as a human.

The most challenging part for every company is to deliver quality and timely software because customers need to solve their problems the moment they arise, so when it isn’t available it triggers different problems not only from the perspective of customers but also for the company itself, some projects fall into a large tech debt to be delivered on time, others go over budget, and the worse offer features that do not solve the customer's problems.

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Why ideas often don’t pan out

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All start with a problem that needs to be solved where an idea is the mechanism that we have to build the solution, this idea needs to become tangible and meaningful for the customers, and in most cases, it requires accomplishing different requirements to be successful. In my lifetime I’ve seen ideas that are destined for success, but others aren’t because they don’t provide enough value, for example, it doesn’t have good usability so it is very complex to operate and it turns out to be exhausting to use it, others aren’t feasibility because it requires a lot of effort to develop that is not profitable, and others don’t have business viability because there are many constraints from launch like a government restriction.
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Another factor is that it takes a lot of iterations to deliver the MVP or the solution into production to get customer feedback, we fall into many circumstances around deadlines and accomplishments that only trigger delivering features without purpose increasing the technical debt. I saw this behavior repeatedly in different projects independently of the size and company culture. With this behavior it is expected that as the project progresses the disconnection with the customer’s problem becomes part of more unused documentation, ceasing to be present on a day-to-day basis.
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We live in a dynamic market, and the customer’s needs are constantly changing, in that sense, we need to adapt our delivery process with the right product at the right moment. So what are the challenges? What happens if we don’t evaluate our product with a rapid evolution of technology? I saw many projects fail because they miss the process of product discovery that allows us to analyze the customer problems, the market trends, and the risk associated with solutions, unfortunately, there’s often a tendency to hastily proceed to creating roadmaps with features that only make sense for us.

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Pitfalls of roadmaps
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Building a roadmap is one of the difficult tasks that every product leader faces, it involves functional features, technical aspects, and a well-defined user experience, but as with any project it includes the milestones, deadlines, and risks that need to be mitigated, all these characteristics creates a sense of commitment to your organization, and we know that the main reason to exist is to determine when we would launch the solution to our customers, but in the other hand, we know that roadmap is a guide, an intention of what we want to create and is not set in stone.

The challenge arises when a significant amount of time is dedicated to defining and creating features, and as the deadline approaches, the team is fervently committed to delivering these features. However, this focus doesn’t always effectively address the underlying problem, leading to instances when we inadvertently overlook the resolution of the customer’s primary problem.

So, why is it important to timely deliver features when the underlying problem remains unresolved? 

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In the dynamic startup ecosystem, where budgets are tight and customer needs evolve rapidly, relying solely on feature-driven development can be a recipe for inefficiency. Instead, a problem-solving approach should be prioritized. By focusing on delivering core value first, startups can gain traction, validate their ideas, and iterate on features based on real-world user feedback, ultimately leading to a more successful product.
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Because delivery value is about solving a problem not delivering features well-crafted.

But how to deliver value with a problem-solving approach?

You don’t need too much to get this approach, you must empower your teams with a product vision that helps them keep on track.

Let’s dive into it in the following sections…
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Empowering your team
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We can say that empowering teams should be driven by a commitment to solve underlying issues rather than merely delivering features.

I saw product teams thrive when they are fully immersed in the context of their client, industry, and business, getting the knowledge to unblock their full potential to achieve the objectives, so they constantly think about what are the problems and how can they resolve them.

So, the first advice is to set all the context and be a good communicator, your team doesn’t want a leader who compiles all the solutions in his mind and just commands what needs to be done. If you do that, please stop! even if you have all the clarity and know how to resolve you need to give them the space to co-create the solution, you can give them around questions and validate the final solution.

When working with product backlog we face the commitment to include the deadline, and as a leader, the worst thing you can do is to set one directional deadline without consulting the opinion of your team, so, you need to guarantee to include your team in the estimation to minimize the risk.
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Premature commitment can be prejudicial to achieve the objectives.

But what about if your team doesn’t know how long the effort takes? One way to minimize the risk is to conduct a continuous discovery of the solutions before making commitments, it ensures that all your estimations are considered with minimum uncertainty, and involving your team's opinion ensures that the estimations are aligned with team capacity.

But empowering teams is not just giving them a context and getting their opinion, it’s so far more than focusing on the task that needs to be completed as a team, you need to bring them a purpose, and you need to explain to them why it is important, in that sense, you need to establish something with a long-term view.

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Develop a product vision that keeps you on track
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There is a force in every company that becomes crucial to guide the teams towards the objectives, this serves as the north star in all our decisions and gives us clarity about what is important. The product vision is a remarkable phrase that motivates all the team members towards a common goal and inspires them to contribute to a shared objective.

There are many characteristics that product vision has, it should be clear, concise, and inspiring, and it should focus on solving customer problems and fulfilling their needs, is the future, and describes the long-term impact the product aims to make. But why do we need to create a vision around these? Because it will be embraced by your team and remembered in day-to-day decision-making, when all of your team is aligned with the product vision and values of the company is more feasible to ensure coherence in the organization’s strategic objectives.

Of course, there are different challenges to applying product vision whether startup or big corporations, let’s dive into it.

In the startup ecosystem, the product vision should be flexible enough to accommodate changes and iterations based on rapid learning. It’s important to validate with potential customers early on to ensure it resonates with their needs and aspirations, and also be adjusted with feedback from stakeholders and customers. It needs to be supported with agile methodologies to enable rapid development cycles and quick adaptation to market changes.

In big corporations you need to align with the overall corporate strategy and contribute to the long-term objectives, you need to encourage and foster collaboration between departments and teams to ensure the product vision is understood and supported throughout the organization. Consider the scalability to accommodate the size and complexity of the organization.
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How do we shape the future?
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Everyone is thinking about how will be the future and what goals we need to achieve to be successful, I think that having a structure is clear for everyone where we will be in the future, but instead of thinking about how it will be, I encourage to think about what we need to do right now to be closer to the objectives. The power of now and empowering your teams around actions is the real force and as a leader, you need to understand that even if you have a vision and roadmap the we achieve the goals is acting.

My final thought about this is how we have a structure to split the goal. how we encourage the teams to take action, how as leaders prioritize the most important things to achieve goals, and how will be the future if we don’t take action?