Making the Hard Call
There's a moment when Jesus wakes up early and heads out to a spot to pray. This is right after he's spent a day healing people and casting out demons - you know, a day that ends in Y.
His Plans Aren't Always Our Plans
Here's how Mark writes it (starting in verse 35):
Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for him, and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.”
His Plans Aren't Always Our Plans, Part Two
I know, you're likely thinking - "What does this have to do with product development?"
Don't give up yet, here's another story. Different context, same point.
We pick up this story in Mark 6.
Then, because so many people were coming and going that they did not even have a chance to eat, he said to them, “Come with me by yourselves to a quiet place and get some rest.”
So they went away by themselves in a boat to a solitary place. But many who saw them leaving recognized them and ran on foot from all the towns and got there ahead of them. When Jesus landed and saw a large crowd, he had compassion on them, because they were like sheep without a shepherd. So he began teaching them many things.
By this time it was late in the day, so his disciples came to him. “This is a remote place,” they said, “and it’s already very late. Send the people away so that they can go to the surrounding countryside and villages and buy themselves something to eat.”
But he answered, “You give them something to eat.”
The emphasis is my own. But you see it again, right?
Making the Hard Call
In both stories, the disciples are thinking, "let's go left" and Jesus switches things up and says they're going right.
I could give you more examples, like when Jesus takes a few up a high mountain and they suggest building some shelters (Mark 9), but by now you get the point.
Making a tough call is something we see Jesus do throughout His ministry. And there's only one way to consistently make the tough call.
Saying No is just as important as saying Yes.
Saying No is Tough When Things are Good
When crowds are cheering for you and wanting you to do miraculous things, it feels like the right thing to go back to the crowd and do some more cool stuff.
When you're tired and promised rest, it feels like the right and obvious thing to send people off to go get food.
When Elijah and Moses are showing up on a mountainside it feels right to build some shelters, sell some tickets and get everyone up there to witness this cool thing.
The only way you'll know that you shouldn't do those things is when you are clear about what you're saying yes to, and what you're saying no to. And saying no is the hardest part when the things you're saying "no" to are good things.
Product Development Requires Product Strategy
I've been building products for 25 years. If there's one lesson I've learned it's that you need clarity before you build. And often that clarity comes from strategy.
You need to know:
- Where you're going
- Who you're serving
- What problem you're solving
- How you intend to do it
- What's outside of scope
And all of that is less about product development and more about product strategy.
How Will We Decide What We're Doing?
There are two models for how people decide what to build (what's in scope) - Inside Out and Outside In. It's easier to see as a picture.
Do you start by looking at your own team, talents, and resources and decide what you can do with it all? That's the way Peter reacts in the stories above. That's the Inside Out way.
The other way, the Outside In way, is about what the customer / audience need and want, and we then do what we need to do to deliver on that. It's what you see Jesus model over and over again.
Product Strategy Means Picking & Choosing
Often, product strategy is about making a decision. What's in scope and what's outside of scope. I use this framework often - the lifecycle model of a customer.
What I do is ask my teams to map this out. What is happening to our customer before they get into their most common routine / effort? What do they need when they're in their routine? And what do they do after?
It gives us a picture of that customer over the entirety of their existence. Here's what it looks like when you fill it out.
Suddenly the picture gets really clear. This example is for a specific kind of customer - the missionary. And you may disagree with what I've selected in the pre, during and post parts of the lifecycle. But you'll have one, no matter what you do.
Now we get to the good part.
Which parts of this lifecycle are we going to focus on? Where are we saying "yes" and where are we saying "no?"
Making the Hard Calls
I'm going to wrap this up with one of my favorite stories. It's towards the end of Mark 10. Again, give me a second to explain the connection...
Then James and John, the sons of Zebedee, came to him. “Teacher,” they said, “we want you to do for us whatever we ask.”
“What do you want me to do for you?” he asked.
They replied, “Let one of us sit at your right and the other at your left in your glory.”
“You don’t know what you are asking,” Jesus said.
They don't know what they're asking because in His moment of glory, He'll be on a cross. He's pretty sure they don't really want to be on His left and right.
But the reason I love this story is because it's so me. And it's so you.
We often find ourselves wanting things the way we imagine it, even if we have no clue. We don't have enough context and we don't know enough to shape our requests.
We come into things with very human eyes and we see what we want to see, and we come with very human mouthes and we ask what we want to ask.
Product development is like that. Tons of folks have stepped into product development without strategy, without a lot of context. They've used hope as a strategy, and ended up asking the wrong questions (or worse, building products no one has ever asked for).
