What Does It Really Mean to Focus on Outcomes, not Output?

1. Business outcomes Those are metrics related to the organization’s goals like: increase revenue lower operating costs grow market share grow profit margin reduce churn rate Business outcomes allow the company’s stakeholders to track the company’s progress (e.g., “profit margin grows by 5%”). Business outcomes are lagging indicators. On top of that, product teams typically cannot influence them directly, so they need to be translated into product outcomes. 2. Product outcomes At the product level, we may decide that a way to decrease the churn rate (impact a business outcome) is to increase customer engagement, measured, for example, as the total number of hours customers watch videos every month. As Joshua Seiden noticed in Outcomes over Output, these outcomes are always associated with a change in human behavior. He defined outcomes as “a change in human behavior that drives business results.” An example of the product outcome may be the following metric change: “every month, customers spend, on average, 30 minutes more watching videos.” Both business and product outcomes outlined above align with Continuous Discovery Habits by Teresa Torres. 3. Customer outcomes Customers do not care about the Output (features). The three types of customer outcomes, as defined in the Product-Led Growth by Wes Bush, are: Functional outcomes. The core tasks the customer wants to get done. For a car, it’s traveling from point A to B. Emotional outcomes. How do customers want to feel or avoid feeling as a result of using your product? Is it safety, freedom, joy, taking care of the environment, or adrenaline? Social outcomes. How do customers want to be perceived by others by using your product? What does Tesla tell others about your status or values?