The product people I coach on a regular basis include the some of the most intelligent, thoughtful, and creative people I've ever worked with.

Frequently, they and their teams feel caught on the constant crush of constantly delivering too much work in too short a timeframe with too few people. Many of their teams seem strained to the breaking point by the pressure from the avalanches of features "The Business" wants delivered.

Fortunately, there is a way off this hamster wheel.

Realize that every stakeholder feature request is a hypothesis

Simply put, every stakeholder feature request is a guess of what might solve business or customer problems.

It's possible that, once delivered, the feature could possibly deliver value at some point. Yet these software feature requests are treated as sacred, as things the business is convinced it absolutely "needs," features that will finally make the difference to the company. It's important to remember:

You are not one feature away from success. And you never will be.

Teresa Torres

The simplest way to check this is simply go back and measure the actual benefits received from the last 5-6 stakeholder-requested features released. Were they anywhere near what was promised or anticipated? Research reveals that upwards of 60-80% of stakeholder-requested features fail to deliver on their promise. Leadership needs to recognize & accept that every request across every team’s backlog is simply a hypothesis.

Once that recognition sets in and stakeholders gain some humility from that realization, it's time to try a different way to figure out what to build.

The two crucial product competencies:

#1: Use OKRs correctly to set & achieve Outcome-focused goals

When stakeholders hand down feature requests, ask them to set Outcome-focused goals for teams, combined with appropriate success criteria. OKRs can be helpful here, IF they’re written and used correctly.

#2: Use Continuous Discovery to tackle risk collaboratively earlier

Once Outcome goals are set, product managers need to lead their teams to cross-functionally and collaboratively reduce risk earlier in the process through Continuous Discovery. Key will be to bring stakeholders along on the journey as they work through discovery. This practice will radically reduce risk for the solutions teams ultimately do deliver.

These two competencies demonstrate strong modern product management through product, instead of project thinking. Product managers who can help set proper goals, and collaboratively reduce risk through Discovery can ultimately help lead their organization from relentless wheel of feature bloat to delivering solutions that solve meaningful client problems in a way that deliver business value.