Hard Data is the Best Evidence You Can Provide Against Assumptions

Problem

"After four years of providing support and training via remote control software, I became what I would refer to as 'Technical Product Manager'. I was interacting with the engineering team, but not focused enough on the client or marketing aspects of building things. In the following two years, and with close to 20 employees at this point, the company had seen a plateau of growth. The simple reason behind this was the ignoring of customer feedback due to the strong, and at that time, the relentless singular vision of the founder. Knowing full well that we wouldn't thrive in the market without hearing the customers voice, I sought out to change the founder's mind about several product feature changes.. Unfortunately, my opinions, along with a few anecdotal stories did not hold up against the opinions of my superior. I was back to square one upon the founder insisting that these changes would never happen because it was neither what the customers wanted nor what this particular market needed."

"The simple reason behind this was the ignoring of customer feedback due to the strong, and at that time, the relentless singular vision of the founder."

Actions taken

"I spent the next four months reaching out to almost every client I could manage to speak with. I was eager to find out the top ten things they'd like to see in the software in order to make their jobs both easier and faster. I returned to the founder, hard evidence in hand, with what our customers specifically wanted in order to solve the features and problems they had encountered with the software. With the hard data we were in agreeance about the importance of these issues, understanding client needs, and leading the product forward. I was accordingly appointed 'Product Manager'."

Lessons learned

"The main take away for me is that if you are intending on coming up with a product vision and/or a product roadmap, you need to provide hard facts that directly pertain to software needs in order to continue forward. If it is my boss' opinion versus mine, my boss will win every time, but if it's my facts against my boss' opinion, I should win every time. You may have noteworthy assumptions, but without data to back it up, there can be no progressive change. In my case, productivity increased, and by the end of 18 months, all 10 of the customer suggestions had been completed and sales were once again growing."