How we do product at Invoice2go
Product decisions can make or break a company, in this article I overview how we make product decisions at Invoice2go. This follows on from my previous piece where I outlined how Invoice2go devised its product strategy.
First a bit of context…
Invoice2go is a product-led organisation in the hotly competitive B2B SaaS space. We rely almost entirely on our product to drive customer growth (we don’t even have a sales team!) and it’s imperative our product continues to exceed our customers expectations.
For these reasons we take decisions that affect our product very seriously. As a result, we created a four phase process that all product enhancements must go through. Internally this is known as the ‘Product Development Process’ (PDP).
Where does the PDP fit in?
The PDP purpose is to ensure the product teams at Invoice2go are working on the most impactful product initiatives. I previously conveyed how, after the formation of our product strategy, the company restructured the product and engineering teams into three key groups that aligned with our strategic priorities.
However, even with focused and mission driven teams there are still infinite ways to achieve an objective. It is the role of the product teams to determine the most effective route. This is really where the PDP comes in….
The below diagram illustrates how the PDP is the framework that helps product teams determine the most impactful method to hit their objectives or Objective Key Results (OKRs).
The Four Phases of the PDP
Phase 1: Problem Definition
The first phase of the PDP is all about defining the problem the team is proposing to solve, with no solutioning allowed. This is really where the product manager comes into their own. At this stage it’s critical that the PM has done their due diligence and adequate discovery to sufficiently breakdown the problem.
This phase should leave everyone with no doubt that this is the most impactful problem the team should be addressing.
Phase 2: High Level Solution
In the second phase (usually led by PM, with support from designer, researcher and tech lead) the team is required to propose their favoured means to solve the problem, and why. Here the team overviews their process that enabled them to land on their favoured solution. This usually involves sharing relevant evidence such as prototyping and user feedback.
Phase 3: Detailed Solution
After communicating a high level outline of the team’s favoured solution in phase 2, the team now provides more details about their proposed solution. This is the part of the process where the product designer comes into their own.
This usually involves walking through high level mockups of the key concepts behind the solution. It is expected the session is overlaid with further exhibits of how user research, prototyping and user testing has informed the solution. In addition, to address any feasibility risks and concerns the tech lead also walks through their initial technical implementation plan.
Phase 4: Post Implementation Review (PIR)
Part 4 is conducted after the initiative has launched and aims to compare actual performance to the predefined measures of success. This may sound quite standard practice, however the real value is having the PIR in context of the first 3 phases. This part provides a forum for the team to communicate the successes, failures and most importantly the key learnings that can be passed on throughout the organisation.
Review Meeting Format
Each phase of the PDP requires the product team to prepare a long form paper that is shared and reviewed with leaders from product, engineering and design. Taking inspiration from Amazon’s notorious ‘No PowerPoint’ stance, the longer format ensures that the team conducts an appropriate level of detail that can be easily reviewed by leaders.
Operationally, a review of the paper usually involves a meeting with the team and leaders. This provides an optimal forum for the team to address any questions and attain invaluable feedback from leaders.
The Value the PDP Provides
The implementation of the PDP has directly resulted in improved outcomes for the product team. While the PDP has had its intended impact of improving product decision making, it has also led to an increased degree of trust throughout the company and set a higher standard for product work.
Increased trust up, down, left and right
The consistent and highly visible process has provided product teams with a greater deal of trust throughout the organisation. Looking up, the PDP ensures leaders are provided with an adequate level of context and an opportunity to provide feedback at each phase of the PDP.
A similar impact has been seen horizontally as each phase paper and the subsequent leadership feedback is freely available to anyone at Invoice2go. This ensures all relevant stakeholders and teams can easily remain informed. The value of the additional trust provided to teams should not be understated. It truly enables our product teams to function as what Marty Cagan calls ‘empowered teams’.
Improve the Standard
The PDP’s purpose is to provide a framework to ensure that teams are tackling the most pertinent problems for our customers. By having all initiatives follow the same rigorous and transparent process the PDP sets a consistently high standard across the product org.
It has also led teams to share novel learnings and foster a collaborative environment of continuous improvement, which only drives the standard higher.
The Verdict
While we continue to review and iterate on our PDP, the overarching belief is that the PDP led to improved outcomes for Invoice2go. Since the launch of the PDP, the rate at which we ship value adding features for our customers has increased exponentially.
A good portion of this can be attributed to increasing trust across the company and setting a higher standard, but perhaps most critically the process just inherently encourages collaboration. Something that I believe puts us in good stead as we continue to expand our product team.
Comments or Feedback
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