June - 2015 - issue > Last Word

Faster Horses or a Better Product?

Gaurav Passi

EVP, Product Management-Five9 Inc.

Monday, June 1, 2015

Forward

Building a winning product is like painting a beautiful work of art. To paint a masterpiece, you need to start with a clean piece of canvas, with all the colors and brushes within arms' reach, and no restrictions. In building a winning product (especially a new one), you also start with no limitations. A clean canvas and all your tools personas, competitive analysis, validation, prototyping, scrum teams, beta programs at hand to channel the voice of the customer into a masterpiece.

Of course, there are differences between paintings and products. Unlike a masterpiece hanging in a gallery, you deliver products to millions of users. Not only are you painting for that audience, you are on a constant journey of challenging every brushstroke of your vision, at any time throughout the product lifecycle.

The products I'm responsible for developing begin with the voice of the customer. However, to paraphrase Henry Ford, if I simply built what customers told me to build, I would have built faster horses. My product managers are empowered to make great products a reality by both channeling and challenging every voice at every step through an agile canvas.

What is this canvas? It is clear, concise, and before any line of code is created, you paint answers to the following:

Who's the enemy? What is the compelling unmet need? After all, "slow horses" weren't the problem
Is that problem truly worth solving? Is there a clear sizing and market for it that you and only you can solve?