The Moonshot Horizon Blog

Innovative views on intelligent digital products and companies

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The Continuous Intelligent Digital Product

As organizations across vertical markets continue to adopt and build capabilities to deliver products and services to internal and external customers, they are faced with the challenge of delivering the capabilities that will usher in the most value.  Over the past 15 years, adoption and advances of Internet technologies and business models has contributed to hyper-growth for businesses that have been the front-runner/visionaries then to businesses that were slower to adopt.  Drivers such as commerce, content, mobile and analytics have spawned entirely new businesses or models to adopt, resulting in unbelievable transformative results across every industry.  In many ways, these drivers (not only Uber drivers) have been part of a Second Wave of the global Internet Revolution (The Internet Revolution is the New Industrial Revolution,@forbes).  While this post is not meant to detail where we have been as professionals and the contributions to these remarkable business advancements, it’s important to take a breath, pause, and give accolades to all involved.

Fast forward to present day.  Many businesses have been able to participate in the Internet drivers seeking to introduce net new capabilities that outperform competitors’ services and products.  However, as the Second Wave reaches maturity, a point in time when many business have achieved capabilities in commerce, content, mobile and analytics - businesses have also become carefully orchestrated and efficient operators of these capabilities.  Entire business units, groups and teams - even C-level positions - have been created to standardize, manage risk, and deliver on these capabilities.  

When all businesses have achieved a level of table stakes capabilities, based on matured Internet business models, operational ways of working and technology platforms, how does a business continue to grow rapidly and differentiate?  As a result of businesses embracing the Second Wave capabilities, it is common for this statement to be made within the walls of [insert-business-name-here]:

“Every two weeks, our team designs and delivers an updated set of capabilities and experiences to our customers that we will collect behavioral information and business results from.  Once our customers use this, our team will analyze the results based on our tried-and-true process, then we design and schedule updates for the future (probably, more than two weeks in the future because we have already scheduled to delivery new capabilities two weeks from now."

This statement is rooted in user experience, operations, data, insights and technology; however, it’s also based on historical data, experience concepts that we believe will change the collected historical data, and a delivery schedule that is lagging behind the business’ demands.  Hence, we arrive at the current state of the digital product in many businesses.  

Our primary vision at Moonshot Horizon is to take businesses beyond the current digital product mindset, to achieve near future results through a new set of operational processes, sciences and experiences that build on technology accomplishments achieved during the Second Wave of the Internet Revolution, allowing business to once again pursue hyper-growth and efficiently in the next, Third Wave of the Internet.

The vehicle to drive business results through the Third Wave of the Internet is the Continuous Intelligent Digital Product.

As businesses we’re faced with blocking processes that impede the creativity of the individual, a deluge of data, and the ever expanding role of software in every day use.  The Continuous Intelligent Digital Product sets businesses on a path for success.  With this concept, businesses will be able to change the earlier statement to:

“When we see fit, even one hundred times per day, our people and intelligent systems are learning and changing our capabilities and user experiences based on actual in-the-moment results taking into account relevant current events beyond historical data.  Our teams are empowered to experiment alongside the automated mechanisms to achieve maximum business results, results that may not have been apparent."

The concept is comprised of the following core concepts that business will need to master in the near and far future:

The Digital Product: As described in our Series of posts elaborating on “Delivering Digital Products Efficiently,” the digital product will always be a core set of experiences, operations and technology conceived to delivery value.

Continuous: Businesses must urge their teams to work together in concert and change operational and delivery models to quicken the pace of experience delivery.  These operational models must encourage feedback from the consumer as acceptance instead of relying on an internal team of analysts and quality steps that elongate the delivery cycle.

Intelligent: The significant arrival and prominence of mathematics, statistics and computer science will power new capabilities that allow the digital product to optimize and alter itself, rapidly.

We will continue to expand on this topic in future posts!

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How to launch impactful digital products efficiently (3 of 3)

Part 3: Taking MVP to the next level

This post is the third in our three-part series on how to launch digital products efficiently. Check out parts 1 and 2 on the importance of accurately defining a digital product and adopting a product vs. a project mindset.

Organizations of all sizes are working with services companies to help get their good ideas to market as quickly as possible. Many look to the startup world for inspiration, where the MVP approach is widespread. Popularized by Eric Ries (@ericries), the Minimum Viable Product approach helps companies launch the version of a new product that brings back the maximum amount of validated learning about its customers with the least amount of effort. The MVP approach is all about getting impactful products to market quickly and iterating over time. Although we love it, we don't believe it's a silver bullet in and of itself.

Every organization can realize value by adopting the MVP mentality. A good example is Apple - a company that is revered for its ability to continuously innovate. Stratechery's Ben Thompson (@benthompson) describes Apple's approach in his recent piece Apple Music and Apple’s Focus:

"Apple has released many new products over the last decade. Only a handful have been the start of a new platform. The rest were iterations. The designers and engineers at Apple aren’t magicians; they’re artisans. They achieve spectacular results one year at a time. Rather than expanding the scope of a new product, hoping to impress, they pare it back, leaving a solid foundation upon which to build. In 2001, you couldn’t look at Mac OS X or the original iPod and foresee what they’d become in 2010. But you can look at Snow Leopard and the iPod nanos of today and see what they once were. Apple got the fundamentals right."

Many people would look at Apple and disagree with the notion that they advocate an MVP approach. Pick up any of Apple's amazing products. Is the first thing that comes to mind "minimally viable"? Probably not! The nuance here is Apple's standard of execution on the experience side - which is higher than most, if not all companies in the world. What's minimally viable for Apple is not the same as what’s minimally viable for Big Lots, for example. Companies first must establish a basic standard of experience execution. Then focus on how to deliver products that meet this standard as efficiently as possible. Something Apple does like clockwork.

Getting digital products to market and optimizing based on validated learning is a no-brainer. So why doesn't every company in the world adhere to the MVP mantra? A major obstacle we’ve experienced first hand is how people perceive the concept. Many translate MVP in a literal sense, thinking “why would we ever put a minimally viable product in front of our customers? Shouldn’t we hold ourselves to the highest standard possible?” This might seem like getting hung up on semantics, but it is a real obstacle. Adopting a product mindset and leveraging an MVP approach requires a cultural shift in how companies operate. Therefore language and communications are incredibly important. (For more on this topic check out The Tyranny of the Minimum Viable Product from the Medium Staff - @MediumStaff.)

Adopting a product mindset and leveraging an MVP approach requires a cultural shift in how companies operate. Therefore language and communications are incredibly important. - Moonshot Horizon

To help people move beyond the literal translation of MVP, the folks at The Happy Startup School came up with a new take on this approach called MLP - Minimum Lovable Product. Written by Laurence McCahill (@welovelean), MLP is the version of a new product that brings back the maximum amount of love from your early tribe members with the least effort. Switching out “viable” with “lovable” should help people who resist the concept based on a literal translation. Although the word “lovable” feels a little cheesy, the concept makes complete sense and we’re looking forward to testing it out with our clients.

Whether it’s an MVP, MLP, or anything in between*, the core concept is one we passionately believe in: identify the leanest combination of technologies and operational components that deliver value to customers via delightful experiences. As the core product is released into the wild, one that the organization is proud of, measure the effectiveness of the product relative to KPIs and commit to evolving the product through validated learning.

So we get it, MVP rules. Is it a panacea? Not quite.

To take the MVP/MLP approach to the next level, we believe in layering on a mentality called adjacent thinking. We first learned of this concept from Linda Bustos (@getelastic) from the Elastic Path blog. Linda defines the adjacent possible as, "the intersection of the next most immediate thing that people really want and matching it to the next immediate thing that you can provide. Adjacent possible ideas are easier to generate and can be tested quickly. This approach also allows you to fail faster and cheaper and hold fast to what yields the most value.”

Adjacent thinking is an important element of the MVP/MLP conversation because it allows organizations to leverage processes, skill-sets, organizational structures, and technologies that are already in place today to achieve something new and different in the future. Before investing millions in the next great platform or making a handful of new hires, use what you already have and test it. If the market (e.g. customers or users) tell you the capability is of value, then consider investing in its future.

Adjacent thinking is an important element of the MVP/MLP conversation because it allows organizations to leverage processes, skill-sets, organizational structures, and technologies that are already in place today to achieve something new and different in the future. - Moonshot Horizon 

In an effort to not make this post never-ending, I recommend the following posts from Steve Blank and the Harvard Business Review for continued reading on this topic:

Lean Innovation Management - Making Corporate Innovation Work, by Steve Blank

The Ambidextrous Organization, by Charles A. O’Reilly III and Michael L. Tushman

We hope you found this three-part series interesting!

*Other approaches based on the Lean vocabulary include the Business Model Canvas, the Customer Development process, Pivots, Evidence-based entrepreneurship, Investment Readiness Level, Technology Readiness Levels, open-source lean classes, and Lean LaunchPad classes (thank you @sgblank).

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How to launch impactful digital products efficiently (2 of 3)

Part 2: The importance in moving from a project to a product mindset

In Part 1 of this series on how to launch impactful digital products efficiently, we discussed the importance in making sure the digital product includes experience, technology, and operational components. Let’s continue the conversation by discussing the value in shifting from a project to a product mindset. This post addresses the following questions:

What is a product mindset?

What does a non-product mindset look like?

Why is developing a product mindset critical for organizations focused on delivering impactful digital products efficiently?

First things first: our perspective on adopting a product mindset is heavily influenced by Marty Cagan’s post Product vs. IT Mindset. Marty (@cagan) heads up the Silicon Valley Product Group and is the author of an amazing book called Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love, a must read for all digital product managers. I don’t know Marty personally, but his views on digital, technology, and the product management discipline are second to none. In this post, I’ll reference a lot of his thinking verbatim as its spot on.

Marty puts forth that the main role of the product organization in companies both large and small is to deliver value through continuous product innovation. The problem is that as most companies get larger and more successful they lose their ability to deliver ongoing value efficiently. The operative word here is “efficiently.” As companies make more money, hire more people, and expand into new markets, they often don’t have the right processes and procedures in place to identify strategic opportunities, roll out differentiating capabilities, gather real-time feedback, and iterate forward. In other words, they lose their ability innovate efficiently. What he refers to as the “IT mindset” is what many larger organizations suffer from today. Here’s a summary of Marty’s comparison of the product and IT mindsets along a set of key criteria.

Think of the product mindset as the cultural foundation upon which innovation can flourish - Moonshot Horizon

We often refer to this as the difference between projects and products. Projects, aligning with the IT mindset, represent the traditional view. Where a project has a defined beginning and end, products are evolved over time based on customer feedback, optimization testing, and strategic performance relative to KPIs.

So why is the product mindset critical for organizations focused delivering impactful digital products efficiently?

Because digital products are not projects. Companies cannot expect success if they manage their digital products as projects. Think of the product mindset as the cultural foundation upon which innovation can flourish. It’s the understanding that in order for a digital product to be successful, it needs to be supported by the right mix of experience, technology, and operational resources. It’s the knowledge that a product shouldn’t be jam-packed with tons of features and functionality to appease the various stakeholders of a business. It’s the clarity that prototypes are more effective in describing functionality than libraries of detailed documentation. It’s a grasp of the fact that a product must be designed to solve a core customer need/business problem, then put in front of the people who will use it so that it can iterate and evolve over time.

Whether its projects vs. products or the IT mindset vs. the product mindset, adopting a product view for success in this space is non-negotiable.

Now that we’ve established a shared understanding of a digital product and discussed the importance in adopting a product mindset, Part 3, the final post in this series, focuses on the best approach for launching digital products efficiently.

See you next Thursday!

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How to launch impactful digital products efficiently (1 of 3)

Part 1 of 3: What is a digital (or digitally influenced) product?

The world of digital and technology services is crowded these days. Agencies, consultancies, and systems integrators (and every combination thereof) are helping their clients figure out how to leverage digital to better serve their customers. Why? Because there's a lot at stake. Companies of all sizes are facing competition from every angle. Digital technologies have tipped the balance in favor of the "always on" customer (The Age of the Customer, @forrester). Companies that deliver innovative capabilities to market efficiently will survive. Those that don't, won't. Therefore, services companies that can help their clients continuously innovate are worth their weight in gold.

So how can companies get their good ideas to market as quickly and efficiently as possible? Many services companies are pitching an approach lauded by the startup community called Minimum Viable Product (MVP for short). Popularized by Eric Ries (@ericries), author of the game-changing book The Lean Startup and the consistently awesome blog Startup Lessons Learned, the MVP approach helps companies launch the version of a new product that brings back the maximum amount of validated learning about its customers with the least amount of effort. We love this approach because it's all about getting impactful products launched quickly so that they can iterate over time. But we don't believe it's a silver bullet in and of itself.

Before jumping into our perspective on how to augment the MVP approach, it’s important to start with defining what a digital (or digitally influenced) product actually is. After establishing this shared understanding, Part 2 will discuss the importance of adopting a product (vs. a project) mindset. Lastly, Part 3 provides our take on the MVP approach and how companies can best move forward.

So what is a digital product exactly? A website? A mobile app? An algorithm? The technology platforms that power the experiences? The operational structures that govern the experiences and platforms?

Most define a digital product from the customer experience perspective. The touchpoints and interactions that customers see/touch/feel represent the digital product. We agree.

Another common definition includes not only the UX, but also the technologies and platforms that power the experience. This technology-inclusive definition is important because any digital product that doesn't consider the constraints and capabilities of the platforms in play is fundamentally flawed. Failing to include the technical components leaves a company susceptible to surprises. The types of surprises that lead to poor customer experiences.

The problem, as we see it, is most definitions stop here: experiences + technologies = digital products. The missing piece of the digital product puzzle is operations: the skill sets, supporting processes, and governing structures that power the technologies and deliver the experiences to customers and users.

Let's use an example to illustrate what we mean. If a B2B auto parts distributor wants to deliver personalized experiences that provide promotions to customers in context, the following considerations would apply to the digital product:

Experience: what problem are we trying to solve and why? At what points in the customer journey does it make sense to deliver a promotion? What is the right set of interactions that make the experience easy to use? How can we tie together the eCommerce site, mobile app, and in-store technologies to deliver a contextually relevant experience that meets the needs of our customers (and delights them in the process)?

Technology: what platforms, data, and integrations are required to deliver this cross touchpoint experience? Is custom software required to power the ecosystem? Can we leverage packaged software to deliver the capabilities we need more efficiently? How do cloud solutions come into play?

Operations: who (which role, business unit, department, etc.) will own the creation and management of the promotions capability? How will new platforms that power this capability impact the existing processes - both on and offline? Will our employees need training on the new platforms? Can our organization power the experience and work with the new platforms as-is? Or do we need to hire new/different skill sets? How should existing organizational structures function with this new set of capabilities? What does success look like and how are we monitoring and measuring success? And so on...

The most successful digital products emphasize technology platforms, operational capabilities and customer experiences in equal doses - Moonshot Horizon

So you might be thinking: “What is so unique about this perspective? Doesn’t everyone consider the people side of change and its role in innovation? I’ve heard the phrase "People, Process, Technology" (or a similar variation) a million times. What am I missing here?”

It’s true, few organizations blatantly disregard the operational aspects of digital change. The point we’re making here is emphasis. Most organizations (represented by the clients we’ve worked with) place a greater emphasis on customer experience. In other words, they focus on the experience AT THE EXPENSE of the technologies and operations required to power and maintain them. Don’t get us wrong, we believe the customer experience is paramount to success. But we believe true, repeatable success emphasizes the technology platforms and operational aspects alongside the customer experience in equal doses. 

Experiences + technologies + operations = digital product

If a company doesn't consider these three elements of a digital product, there's no sense in discussing the best approaches for launching them efficiently.

In Part 2 of this 3 part series we'll discuss the importance in moving from a project to a product mindset.