This article is an excerpt from the book “Digital Transformation and Product Culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy“.

A frequent point of friction between traditional company culture and digital product culture is how new feature requests are handled. It’s not uncommon for the sales team to come with requests for the implementation of a feature that sounds more like ultimatums than requests:

“If we don’t implement feature X, the mega-important client I’m negotiating with won’t close the deal with us.”

“One of our biggest clients said that if we don’t implement feature Z by next month, she will cancel with us and go to the competitor.”

Talking about features is talking about solutions, and behind every solution, there’s a problem that needs to be solved. If we invest more time in understanding the problem, the motivation to solve it, and the context in which the problem occurs, there’s a higher chance of finding simpler and easier-to-implement solutions.

A real-life example of this occurred at Gympass. An account manager secured a partnership with a gym and brought back a specific request from the partner: to display a liability waiver within our app. We evaluated the change and replied that it would take two to three weeks to implement.

Before starting, we requested a meeting with the partner to better understand the issue. We asked if the solution had to be implemented in exactly that way. The partner’s lawyer said no; they had designed the solution that way thinking it would help us.

We then asked if a simple text prompt displayed at check-in would solve the problem. She confirmed it would. We implemented the solution immediately and showed them the result.

The partner was satisfied. The account manager was even happier because she could get the gym up and running right away, without waiting weeks for an app update.

This case became an internal benchmark. From then on, account managers began presenting the underlying problem along with any client requests—something like, “The client asked for this, but please talk to them to understand it better.”

That’s why I’ve been encouraging product development teams to use what I call hack 3 to promote a digital product culture: always ask “what is the problem?”. Whenever a new feature request comes to the product development team, we should thank the requester for the request and then inquire about the problem that generated the request. Every member of the product development team needs to exhibit this behavior whenever a new feature request is received.

Something along these lines:

Thanks for bringing up this need for functionality—it’s a great idea. Could you tell me more about the problem this feature would solve? If I take this issue to the team, we might be able to find a solution that’s faster and cheaper to implement.

By practicing this behavior, soon requests will come not only with a solution but also with a lot of information about the problem. It’s interesting to see this cultural shift, but it requires discipline from the members of the product development team to always ask about the problem. And when I mention product development team members, I’m referring to everyone, not just product managers but also designers and product engineers.

Next we will talk about the third hack, what is the problem?

Digital transformation and product culture

This article is another excerpt from my newest book “Digital transformation and product culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy“, which I will also make available here on the blog. So far, I have already published here:

• About the book
• Part 1: Concepts
  • Chapter 1: The so-called digital transformation – Project and Product
  • Chapter 2: Uncertainty and digital transformation
  • Chapter 3: Types of company
  • Chapter 4: Type of company vs digital maturity
  • Chapter 5: Business models
  • Chapter 6: Agile, digital and product culture
• Part 2: Principles
  • Chapter 7: Deliver early and often – Measuring and managing the productivity – Case study: Dasa Group – Case study: Itaú Unibanco
  • Chapter 8: Focus on the problem – The Famous Product Discovery – Why the “business demands => IT implements” model does not work – Case study: Magazine Luiza
  • Chapter 9: Result delivery – Outsource or internal team? – Case study: Centauro
  • Chapter 10: Ecosystem mindset
• Part 3: Tools
  • Chapter 11: Product Vision – Product vision examples
  • Chapter 12: Product Strategy
  • Chapter 13: Team Structure – Structuring effective product development teams – Structural teams – Team structure spreadsheet – Downsizing and layoffs – CTO + CPO – Internationalization – Outsourced team – Tuckman model – Dependencies between teams – Should we have a dedicated innovation team? – Should we have a team dedicated to fixing bugs? – Business Units – Why Individual Bonuses Don’t Work in Product Teams – What makes a group of people behave like a team?
  • Chapter 14: What are OKRs and How to Get the Cadence Right – Perverse Metrics, Leading Metrics, and Lagging Metrics – From Vision to OKRs: Team, Initiatives, and the Metrics That Actually Matter – OKRs, Financial Bonuses, and How to Scale to Large Teams
  • Chapter 15: Measuring Digital and Product Maturity
  • Chapter 16: Hacks to help in the digital transformation journey – Hack #1: Start small – Hack 2: Alpha, beta, and go-live terminology – Hack 3: What is the problem?

Scale your customer research

In a world where AI levels the playing field, deep customer knowledge is the one asset your competitors can’t copy. ReveLumi was built exactly for that. Learn more at revelumi.com.

Workshops, coaching, and advisory services

I’ve been helping companies and their leaders (CPOs, heads of product, CTOs, CEOs, tech founders, and heads of digital transformation) bridge the gap between business and technology through workshops, coaching, and advisory services on product management and digital transformation.

Gyaco Podcasts

At Gyaco, we believe in the power of conversations to spark reflection and learning. That’s why we’ve created “Produto em Pauta” podcast, with new episodes every Thursday.

The main series is called Mentorias: coaching conversations with product professionals, built on the idea that one person’s questions are often the questions of many others. We explore concrete challenges and turn experience into practical insights you can apply in your own context.

Available on YouTube and Spotify. Recorded in Portuguese, with English subtitles on YouTube.

Digital Product Management Books

Do you work with digital products? Do you want to know more about managing a digital product to increase its chances of success, solve its user’s problems, and achieve the company objectives? Check out my Digital Product Management books, where I share what I learned during my 30+ years of experience in creating and managing digital products:

• Digital transformation and product culture: How to put technology at the center of your company’s strategy
• Leading Product Development: The art and science of managing product teams
• Product Management: How to increase the chances of success of your digital product
• Startup Guide: How startups and established companies can create profitable digital products