While digital transformation has long been a buzzword, the past few years have seen a marked change in the digital expectations across industries. Anticipating and meeting consumer needs means developing the right product strategy to guide your digital work before a solution is even developed. In the first part of a three-part Haptic Feedback series Shockoe’s product strategists Chandler Tyler and Mason Brown and product analyst Toz Grewal shared what the future of digital transformation looks like, and the role strategy plays.
For Shockoe and others in the digital application industry, the pandemic helped to accelerate the use of digital platforms to connect in a dispersed environment. “The quality was always important, but the pandemic has put into perspective the importance for certain types of digital solutions,” added Tyler. With a renewed focus on “digital first” in today’s world more companies are recognizing the importance of a product strategy from the outset. Grewal pointed out that’s where teams like Shockoe come in “we exist to validate, confirm, check and test every assumption that an organization makes to decide the future of its product.”
For organizations looking to develop their product strategy the team recommends Shockoe’s unique approach – the three B’s: behavior, barriers, and benefit. Start by understanding the single most important behavior you intend to change with your solution, for example, increasing the amount of people performing a certain task in a time frame. From there analyze what barriers currently exist that keep your audience from already completing that behavior. Lastly, define the benefit for users. How can you draw users towards the behavior you want to create?
No matter where you are in the process the Shockoe strategy team encourages you to first understand and define the problem you hope to fix, and then get creative! The team discussed the trend in fun solutions to problems, pointing to technology like Slack which transformed simple communication into a company culture. In general, Grewal warned against being “failure aversive,” and explained, “Embracing the notion of failure pays out long term. You might shoot ten times, but only make it seven.” In other words, failure is an integral part of success.
Stay tuned for part two of the product strategy discussion on the next Haptic Feedback.
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