“This is admittedly going to drive engagement, improve utilization and allow development,” stated each product supervisor ever. And, in so doing, stated nothing in any respect.
Whether it’s the squirrely phrases within the opening sentence or different generic motivational phrases like “drive energetic customers” and “improve attain” evidently product managers and different “enterprise folks” exit of their method to determine “set targets” with out truly being accountable for something particular.
Ambiguity and obfuscation
There is a finite checklist of the phrases we use to keep away from accountability. This is certainly not an entire checklist:
- Engagement
- Usage
- Active customers / exercise
- Growth
- Reach
- Conversion
- Delight
- Value
(Which others do you hear on a regular basis?)
On the floor these seem to be high-quality “enterprise phrases.” Dig slightly deeper although and also you understand in a short time that these phrases imply nothing, not less than nothing truly usable in a product growth context. Yet we are saying them on a regular basis. We say them as a result of they’re stated to us. Our bosses give us the duty to improve engagement or broaden the attain of our customers.
For a press launch these phrases and phrases are (perhaps) okay to make use of to explain high-level adjustments in your product’s ecosystem. You’ll typically discover them right here paired with quarterly monetary outcomes. In this context they’re (solely barely) extra acceptable as a result of we’re reporting out to a largely non-technical viewers about one thing that has already occurred. This is what the press and exterior observers care about. However, as inner language designed to drive particular habits in product groups, they’re as clear as mud.
Avoiding accountability is the purpose
Accountability is frightening and dangerous so we keep away from it. If I’m accountable for a selected metric and we don’t hit that metric I’ve failed at my job. However, if my job is to drive energetic customers all I’ve to do is alter the definition of “energetic” to swimsuit the outcomes we managed to realize this quarter. The ambiguity performs to my favor serving to keep away from troublesome conversations with my stakeholders. It’s no marvel these phrases are so frequent. We can’t predict the long run so committing to generic optimistic traits leaves us numerous room to “be proper.”
Salvation via specificity
If you’ve ever taken a category with me I’ve seemingly coached you to be extra particular. It’s via specificity that we inform higher tales. We clearly outline what we’re attempting to do and the way we’ll decide if we’ve finished it. Instead of “driving development” we’re going to “improve the variety of new customers acquired organically by 17% within the subsequent 2 quarters.” Instead of “growing engagement” we’re going to “improve the variety of customers who watch not less than 2 movies per go to by 50%.” All of a sudden we have now path. We have focus. Our audience is evident. Our purpose is particular, measurable and actionable.
The scary a part of course is that now we’re accountable. There is a price to that accountability. Your staff has to determine obtain this. However, there may be additionally nice energy with specificity. You can use it to deflect undesirable characteristic requests and HIPPO-driven growth. If a wayward consumer story comes your method through The Boss within the guise of “growing engagement”, you may push again objectively by saying, “this consumer story is not going to assist us improve the variety of folks watching 2 movies per go to” which is our present engagement purpose. They will both retract the characteristic request or work with you to outline what they imagine to be a extra acceptable engagement metric (hopefully). In both case, being extra particular (and extra accountable) has resulted in additional focus and alignment for the staff.
We’ve by no means had extra instruments at our disposal that permit us to see, typically in actual time, the influence of the work we produce. The studying alternatives this perception creates can solely be taken benefit of if we have now a selected path. The extra we are able to keep away from ambiguous phrases that don’t imply something the higher we talk with one another. The clearer the communication the extra environment friendly and profitable we will likely be. Yes, it’ll include larger accountability however that’s the ability of constructing services and products with fashionable instruments.