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Introduction

How do you prioritize what goes into your technology products? Do you build what’s easiest to build or dive deeper and create something more valuable?
If you are struggling to prioritize your digital and technology product roadmap, we developed a fun but scientific method that would work for any product. In this blog post, we will share how to use the concept of Value Potential to help you prioritize product features in product development.

Address your customers’ needs

Customer development is about building a product that meets the needs of your target audience. It’s about learning from real people why they would use (or not use) your product and what would make them more likely to use it.
This will help you determine which features are most important for them. If there are multiple solutions for one problem, prioritize based on which one works best for each user group. For example, if two different users want two different ways of doing something, then offer both options and let the users choose which one works best for them personally.
The best way to do this is by gathering customer feedback through surveys, interviews, or focus groups. Gather feedback from everyone from current users to potential customers and other stakeholders such as investors or partners who may have different perspectives than actual users. The more diverse your sample size, the better! If possible, ask them about their biggest pain points so that you can identify which features will provide the most value for them.

What functions do customers use the most?

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of adding new features, but it’s important to keep track of which features are most popular with customers.
You can use tools like Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or Kissmetrics to measure which features they often use. This will help you determine what features to prioritize — and which ones you can cut if necessary.
There is also another way to find out about customer preferences that take less time and effort. It’s called user testing.
In user testing, you get people who have never seen or used your product before and see what they like most about it. It’s a great way to test out different ideas on real users before you build anything.

Prioritize features that are important but not urgent

The first thing to understand is that there is no one-size-fits-all solution for prioritizing features. Each team and each product are different, so there’s no right or wrong answer regarding prioritization.
The key to prioritizing features is understanding what’s important but not urgent. So, if your product is not meeting user expectations or missing some key functionality or a critical piece of functionality, you should prioritize those things first.
On the other hand, if you’re working on something that’s not broken, but it would be nice if it were fixed someday soon — like a new feature that users have been asking for — then you should probably put those items on the back burner until they’re more urgent.
Let’s say you want to launch a new messaging app for teenagers. Of course, you could spend months building out all the features users expect from a messaging app — like group chats, photo sharing, and stickers. But there are other things you can do with your limited time and resources that will impact your users’ lives more.
For example: Improve user experience by identifying bottlenecks in the user flow and fixing them. Or make it easier for users to invite their friends by adding new invite links on product emails or push notifications.

Prioritize features that solve big problems

One of the most important things you can do when prioritizing features is to focus on solving big problems for your customers. If you’re building a new feature for your product, make sure it addresses an important issue enough for people to pay attention to it. If not, don’t waste your time — or theirs — building something that doesn’t matter much to anyone but you.
For example: Let’s say that you have two teams working on two separate projects. One team is working on improving the user interface, and another is working on improving the functionality of your app. Which project should get more time and resources? The answer is obvious — it’s better to improve functionality than to improve user experience (unless you have a very bad UI).

Prioritize features that will differentiate you from the competition

It’s important to prioritize features that differentiates you from the competition and gives you that competitive edge. If you’re not constantly improving and adding more value for your customers, they will go to your competitors.
If you’re an eCommerce business, you want your product to be differentiated from others in the market, so it’s important to focus on differentiating features. For example, if you’re selling apparel online, it might make sense for you to build a feature that helps customers compare products side by side or a feature that helps them “try” the dress online. This feature would help differentiate your business from other online retailers that don’t offer such functionality.
Another way to prioritize features is based on what customers value most when buying decisions. For instance, if you’re selling a subscription service like Netflix or Spotify, then it makes sense for these companies to focus on reducing churn (the percentage of subscribers who cancel). And if you’re building a consumer-facing product like Facebook or Instagram, it makes sense for these companies to focus on increasing engagement (the number of daily active users).

Price-to-value ratio

The price-to-value ratio is a simple concept that most companies can calculate. It simply means how much value you get for your money.
For example, if a product costs $100 and delivers $200 in value to the customer, its price-to-value ratio is 2:1. However, if it costs $100 and delivers only $50 in value to the customer, its price-to-value ratio is 0.5:1.
One way to determine whether it’s worth adding a new feature or a new product to your lineup is by comparing its price-to-value ratio against those of other products already on the market.

Conclusion:

There is one simple mantra – make sure to listen to your customers before finalizing your feature prioritization. This simple step can help you get from “thousands” of features to a manageable list.Even though the importance of product features cannot be stressed enough, a certain protocol makes it easier to prioritize them. Following this protocol will help you gain better insights into the features your client needs the most and those that can wait. The sooner you establish this order, the faster you will be able to complete the implementation. If you can’t decide where to start and how to start, connect with our product experts today and build the most stunning products.

Nitin
Nitin Tappe

After successful stint in a corporate role, Nitin is back to what he enjoys most – conceptualizing new software solutions to solve business problems. Nitin is a postgraduate from IIT, Mumbai, India and in his 24 years of career, has played key roles in building a desktop as well as enterprise solutions right from idealization to launch which are adopted by many Fortune 500 companies. As a Founder member of Pratiti Technologies, he is committed to applying his management learning as well as the passion for building new solutions to realize your innovation with certainty.

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