If your tech team says “we’re working on these features because they make the product better”, stop now before they do any more damage!
“Betterism” is my term for the dangerous belief that you and your team know the “obvious” changes that the product needs. For instance, one company I evaluated recently is obsessive about making the product faster, shaving off fractions of a second at every opportunity. But they’ve never actually checked that their customers value speed that highly, and in fact I found evidence that their super-knowledgeable customer service team is likely to be driving more sales than their lightning-quick login page. I often see this when tech and product teams look to competitors or peers and try to copy them; “everyone’s using the Rust language” or “Kubernetes is best practise” are phrases I outlaw. The cure for “betterism” is fearless validation with customers: make sure that every product decision, no matter how blindingly obvious it seems, has at least one specific customer who is a passionate backer.
This first appeared in my weekly Squirrel Squadron email, which goes out every Monday, and was originally posted on 20th June 2022. To get my provocative thoughts and tips direct to your inbox first, sign up here: https://squirrelsquadron.com/