An interesting case of product failure

I have been reading a few product blogs and came across an interesting comment about why someone switched from Yahoo mail to Gmail: IMAP. I didn't think about this too much but then I realized something. Two things in fact:

A. I switched from Yahoo to Gmail because of IMAP

B. This was a fundamentally stupid thing of Yahoo not to do. How on earth was it that no product roadmap contained 'IMAP' as a feature to implement?

In fact the reason I started reading product blogs was that I could see a number of big software service companies making big mistakes like this.

Why could this happen at Yahoo?

1. Product Manager had no visibility of what was important in the email market.
2. Product Manager was really a Product Marketing person so didn't really understand what IMAP was. I stand beside the statement that good Product Managers know their market and have an appropriate understanding of the platform which delivers product features.
3. Product Manager is a know-nothing political hire from a red brick university and was useful in getting us Accounts AB & C: Fine and dandy but why didn't you hire them as PR or Ambassador or something. Companies like this wind up very top heavy and very output lite. (see Google)
4. Product Manager was totally user driven so didn't see that IMAP standards had firmed up meaning that a holy grail of email would suddenly be possible and huge user demand would occur.

This is a tricky point and one in which a really good Product Manager will shine. Some things you have to use your intuition for. The users wont necessarily know what they want in 6 months or 2 years time and its up to you to ensure its in the roadmap. I think its this point where Yahoo went wrong.

Being a totally user driven product manager will see you waiting for the user to tell you want they want when its too late for you to provide it. This is visible right across Yahoo's product range and frankly in their CEO who like to noise off about what was wrong with the old Yahoo and not focusing on doing something about where the new Yahoo should be in a years time.

Don't get me wrong, user input is vital and certainly for useability testing its important but some things are up to the company to predict and get right because the people that work there are good at doing that. When you receive a large amount of negative user feedback about some feature its a very bad sign as its already too late. Anything that important should have been picked up in the useability part of the process.

So its a mix, being user driven is the easy part. Most users love to say what they don't like in a product, the marketing department can do something useful (instead of trying to get you fired and take your job) and do some surveys and tell you all this. The hard part is that crystal ball magic: predicting what users will want in the future. As a product manager you need to empathise with your users and imagine their needs based on what you know about them today and trends in their markets. Hell, there is no one method to this, its why you've been a product manager for years. Each market has a different way of working so its probably highly dependent on that. Another reason why I dont go for generic product managers and all that 'we fresh air, [I'm trying to hire my friends son]' type rhetoric.

So Yahoo, simple solution- don't hire product managers who are really marketing people. Hire someone who who will tell you the truth and who will talk to you about the entire product and want to know how it fits together. They are trying to understand its dynamics and work out what the needs are in future and how to do todays product more efficiently. Be wary of people who say its not about the technology (especially in software), it usually means they dont want to get their hands dirty and dont want to focus on important issues. You will find out how good they are in another years time when it will be too late.

Google seems to be the opposite: their product manager for Search didn't mention the customer first for a very user driven service. In fact I'd say they did a 'Microsoft Word 2007 meet your new friend Mr Ribbon, he'll be taking over from Mr Paper Clip'

So who does get it right? Apple. In the main Apples products are extremely well executed. Perhaps thats because Steve Jobs is in effect a Product Manager who values all parts of the process from Marketing to Delivery and believes in Innovation. We dont see Apple as a company where users tell Apple how to design its products. No way. Apple inspires through its own good examples of leading the customer by good design and predicting what their base will want. Ask yourself this. Does Apple understand its products, does it care about quality, have those products been checked at a number of quality points?

Think of it another way: does a top furniture design house expect their users to tell them what to design? Does Prada give their customers a pad and ask for a rough sketch? No way. We respect them for knowing what is best for us because they have proven they can do so.

I promote a return to a more design orientated Product Manager for software who needs to understand platforms the way a furniture designer understands materials. Only then will we see on time delivery of features that we want when we want them and not 2 years too late.

I'm done.