curing shiny object syndrome: setting goals & priorities for success - bruce mccarthy...

Curing Shiny Object

Syndrome

Setting Goals & Priorities for

Success

UpUp Labs

Shiny Object Syndrome

pursuing every idea that seems good

without prioritizing, seeing it through to a

reasonable return on investment, or deciding

to abandon it when it doesn’t deliver

20+ years in product development, Product Manager,

Scrum Master, Development Manager, Designer, VP, CPO,

Coach & Mentor, Founded 3 companies, Acquired (2x),

Acquirer (2x), Currently beta testing Reqqs, the smart

roadmapping tool for product people, sports car & craft

beer enthusiast

Flip Over Your Business

Card

Write 1-3 goals on the back

Hand it up to me

UpUp Labs

4-Part Cure

Vision

Strategy

Goals

Prioritized Ideas

UpUp Labs

The leading supplier of

landscape equipment and

materials to affluent Americans

Vision = What we want to be

when we grow up

UpUp Labs

The go-to source for tweens

and teenage girls around the

world for fun collectibles

Vision = What we want to be

when we grow up

UpUp Labs

The #1 source of B2B contact

information

Vision = What we want to be

when we grow up

UpUp Labs

Strategy

=How you will

achieve your vision

Leverage crowd-sourcing to

develop the largest and most-

accurate B2B contact

database

The #1 source of B2B contact

information

UpUp Labs

Goals =What you need to

achieve to execute

your strategy and

realize your vision

UpUp Labs

The 9 Business Goals

• Growth

• Grow market share

• Fulfill more demand

• Improve recurring revenue

• Create competitive barriers

• Develop new markets

• Profit

• Support higher prices

• Lower COGS

• Lower lifecycle costs

• Leverage assets

Ends vs. Means

• HTML5 Redesign

• Social Integration

• Customer Requests

• Revenue

• Scalability

• Transformational

Ideas

Grow recurring revenue

Grow market share

Competitive barriers

Grow market share

Fulfill more demand

Leverage assets

Goals

The largest and most-accurate B2B contact database

• Fulfill more demand by growing the database by X%

• Create competitive barriers by raising accuracy by Y%

The #1 source of B2B contact information

• Grow revenue by Z% this year by fulfilling more demand

• Test potential new sources of future growth & profit by leveraging existing assets

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost customers are

small

Sales requests Change every week

Services

requestsMostly incremental

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost customers are

small

Sales requests Change every week

Services

requestsMostly incremental

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost customers are

small

Sales requests Change every week

Services

requestsMostly incremental

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost customers are

small

Sales requests Change every week

Services

requestsMostly incremental

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost customers are

small

Sales requests Change every week

Services

requestsMostly incremental

Bad Ways to Rank Ideas

Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch

Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking

PopularityMost customers are

small

Sales requests Change every week

Services

requestsMostly incremental

Goals + Math = Better

UpUp Labs

Value / Effort = Priority

Value = expected contribution

to goals

Effort = work the organization

must do to realize value

UpUp Labs

Measuring Contribution

• Exact numbers

• 1-10

• 1-100

• Fibonacci

• 1 to 5 stars

• 0,1,2

Estimating Effort

Do NOT ask Engineering for an estimate

Do it yourself

NOT person-months

NOT sprints

0-5 scale

Some Types of Effort

• Development

• Investigation

• Support

• Sales

• Partnership / OEM / Acquisition

• Market Research

• Merchandising

UpUp Labs

Value / Effort = Priority

(G1+G2+G3) / (E1+E2) x Confidence = P

Confidence = Your certainty that your scores

are accurate

Idea G1 G2 E Raw CScor

e

A 1 1 2 1 75% 0.75

B 1 0 2 0.5 90% 0.45

C 2 -1 1 1 40% 0.4

(G1+G2) / E =

Raw

((G1+G2) / E) * C =

Score

UpUp Labs

4-Part Cure

Vision

Strategy

Goals

Prioritized Ideas

Bruce McCarthy

• Chief Product Person,

UpUp Labs

• bruce@reqqs.com

• @d8a_driven

• www.productpowers.com

• www.reqqs.com

• www.slideshare.net/bmm

ccarthy

• www.sohelpful.me/bruce

mccarthy