The “pick two” of product development
Having grown up in the warm, continental climate of Southeast Asia, when I think of the hot summers, some of my favorite memories are Sunday evenings. My parents took my brother and I to get ice cream at this delightful ice cream shop next to this large outdoor plaza. At the ice cream shop, we got to pick the flavor we wanted, and enjoy it in the plaza. However, it’s also when picking the flavor of ice cream, I first experienced the concept of “pick two”.
Here was the issue with the ice cream picking: I could get a large chocolate scoop (my favorite flavor), but it was only served in a cup. I wanted my ice cream in a cone, and could get strawberry, but it was only served in a small scoop. And, none of the large scoops that were served in a cone were in a flavor that I wanted. 😒🍦😿
Pick Two
“Pick two” is something we have all experienced, often times without knowing about it. The most famous one is the designer’s adage of “good, fast, or cheap, pick two”. Most designers will tell you — if you want to have something done, it can either be done fast or cheap, but it won’t be good. If you want it done well and fast, it won’t be cheap. And if you want it done right and cheaply, it’s going to take a lot of time.
In product development, pick two takes the form of, “innovate, create, or improve, pick two”. Let me explain.
Innovate, Create, or Improve, Pick two
When it comes to products, the art of creating new products is one of balancing what your customers want, with ideas you have of solving their problems. Now try to do that while keeping up with suggestions/feedback on parts of your product customers are already using and familiar with. You are going to have to pick two.
In the context of engineering and software development, the challenge is very similar. You want to experiment with a new way of optimizing the search so that it optimizes the queries by 30% while adding a new feature in the search user experience, but there is this entire service that needs to be refactored before you can add the feature. So you are going to have to pick two.
For product development, you have to pick two among innovation, creation, or improvements. You have a roadmap, and items in your roadmap have been carefully selected and prioritized based on what you have heard your customers want. These are the table stakes of features you need to create. That’s not going to be enough to win. Your competitors all have the same features you are creating. You need to innovate to provide something that your competitors aren’t even thinking about yet. These are solutions to problems your customers don’t even know can be solved in that way. Finally, just when you thought you are going to win this game of product development, your existing customers are going to come at you wanting improvements, enhancements, and fixes to improve on the features that your product already has.
Trying to do all three at once won’t work. That would be like trying to fit a square peg in a round hole. You can try to shave off the edges of the square page, i.e make compromises in your product and in your decisions. But that means you are not going to end up with a great product. So, what are you going to do? How are you going to be successful?
Picking two is simple, but not easy. Start with acknowledging and understanding the challenge of pick two in your own product. Then stop trying to pick three by shaving off the edges with compromises that results in a mediocre product. Finally, pick two, focus your team on the two, and be flexible to adapt a different two in your product strategy.
Go build something awesome.
