{"id":3715,"date":"2016-01-12T12:00:09","date_gmt":"2016-01-12T12:00:09","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=3715"},"modified":"2023-01-17T17:18:30","modified_gmt":"2023-01-17T17:18:30","slug":"dont-take-every-feature-request-seriously","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/dont-take-every-feature-request-seriously\/","title":{"rendered":"Try Not To Be A Slave To Feature Requests"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As I was combing through <\/span><a href=\"https:\/\/www.quora.com\/What-tools-can-I-use-to-keep-track-of-feature-requests\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Quora<\/span><\/a><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> the other day, I came across an interesting question on feature requests:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-what-tools-can-i-use-to-keep-track-of-feature-requests\">&#8220;What tools can I use to keep track of feature requests?&#8221;<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">That question got me thinking about the implications of\u00a0product managers tracking\u00a0feature requests as if they were a growing to-do list.\u00a0Here\u2019s how I responded on Quora:<\/span><br><br><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&#8220;Don\u2019t consider them feature requests, consider them customer feedback. Customer feedback can be good or bad \u2013 but regardless, it is still useful to understand your target, along with their frustrations, limitations, wants, needs, and ways to improve your product.<\/span><\/i><br><br><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You can then use this feedback to better prioritize your backlog. This backlog will include ideas from your team, customers, management, and stakeholders. Of course, you can do much more than just sort by what we call \u201ccustomer desire\u201d \u2013 you can add impact and effort, sort by roadmap, product, tags, and much more \u2013 allowing you to prioritize your roadmap and keep focus on your product vision.&#8221;<\/span><\/i><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Feature requests\u00a0often come from a genuinely helpful place, but what are they\u00a0<\/span><i style=\"line-height: 1.5;\">really<\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">? It&#8217;s just someone telling you they\u2019d like for you to change something that isn\u2019t working for them.\u00a0You don\u2019t have to legitimize each and every one.\u00a0The request is valuable as feedback, but you don&#8217;t have to bump it up to the front of the line because it came in as a feature request.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-customer-feedback\">Customer Feedback<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">What happens if you simply consider a feature request as customer feedback? I can think of at least a&nbsp;couple of things:<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><b>Empower yourself to choose what gets built<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;\u2013 Hey product managers, this is where I want you to get up, raise your arms, and scream \u2018yaaaaas!!!\u2019 because this power is&nbsp;exactly what you need to do a better job as a product manager.<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Investigate why they suggested it in the first place&nbsp;<\/strong>&#8211;&nbsp;You can take the time to dig into the underlying reasons that a customer sent in a request, and look into&nbsp;whether other users have sent in similar feedback. You can then&nbsp;prioritize feedback as it comes in without over-promising, under-delivering or upsetting anyone.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><b>Keep the feedback flowing &#8211;&nbsp;<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">I never said the customer wouldn\u2019t be able to still influence what you do. When customers realize that you consider<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">&nbsp;<em>all<\/em>&nbsp;their feedback to help you decide what&#8217;s next for your product,&nbsp;you&#8217;ll get more of it. &nbsp;<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As a wise woman once told me, \u201c<\/span><a href=\"http:\/\/www.slideshare.net\/bastow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\"><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You are not your market.<\/span><\/i><\/a><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">\u201d <\/span><\/i><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Use this\u00a0opportunity to understand your audience, learn from them, and make actionable changes that improve both your product and keep your clients happy. (And by \u201cwise woman\u201d I am really referring to <a href=\"http:\/\/www.twitter.com\/simplybastow\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">our CEO Janna Bastow<\/a>.) \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-so-what-should-you-do-with-customer-feedback\">So what should you do with customer feedback?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">So what do you do with your feedback once it comes in? <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Tag each item that comes in&nbsp;so later you can filter<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Sort through them to see how many popular an idea is<\/span><\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Determine how much effort it&nbsp;would require and how it&nbsp;might&nbsp;affect the product\u2019s popularity.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you&#8217;ve weighed these factors against one another, you can start prioritizing all this\u00a0feedback.\u00a0If there\u2019s a particular piece of feedback that\u2019s just so good you decide you absolutely must consider it in your backlog, upgrade it to an idea.\u00a0<\/span><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">From here, you can start developing\u00a0it into an actionable task.\u00a0<\/span><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Contact the customer(s) that sent that feedback\u00a0through and find out what led them to leave that feedback, and what their circumstances were, so you can build the business case for the idea with real customer data. (Customers love it <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@kayako\/enough-with-the-1-800-numbers-a12d173deee3\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">when you contact them about their feedback<\/a>, by the way.)\u00a0<\/span><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Then start spec\u2019ing it out. Convert it into something you could possibly work on and start discussing it with your team.\u00a0What do they think? What do they want to see reflected in the business case? How much effort do they think it will require?\u00a0<\/span><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Once you&#8217;ve completed the spec, add it to your <a href=\"\/features\/roadmaps\/\">roadmap<\/a>.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\" id=\"h-final-thoughts-don-t-put-feature-requests-on-a-pedestal\">Final thoughts: Don&#8217;t put feature requests on a pedestal<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>By starting from your\u00a0pool of customer feedback, you actually end up giving more power and consideration\u00a0to your\u00a0customers.<br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">You listen, understand, investigate, and deliver on feedback they gave you &#8211; and then you actually follow up on it. There\u2019s nothing as satisfying\u00a0for a user than when they feel like they\u2019ve had a positive impact on what you do.\u00a0<\/span><br><br><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Your customers will feel like you are actually listening to them and that their feedback really is a part of how you\u00a0improve your product.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As I was combing through Quora the other day, I came across an interesting question on feature requests: &#8220;What tools can I use to keep track of feature requests?&#8221; That&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":3851,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[53,80,93,182],"pp_uni_tag":[],"class_list":["post-3715","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-product-leadership","tag-customer-feedback","tag-filtering","tag-idea-management","tag-product-roadmap"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v27.4 (Yoast SEO v27.4) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-premium-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Try Not To Be A Slave To Feature Requests | ProdPad<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"When you&#039;re a product manager, you&#039;re the boss. 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