Curing Shiny Object
Syndrome
Setting Goals & Priorities for
Success
UpUp Labs
Shiny Object Syndrome
pursuing every idea that seems good
without prioritizing, seeing it through to a
reasonable return on investment, or deciding
to abandon it when it doesn’t deliver
20+ years in product development, Product Manager,
Scrum Master, Development Manager, Designer, VP, CPO,
Coach & Mentor, Founded 3 companies, Acquired (2x),
Acquirer (2x), Currently beta testing Reqqs, the smart
roadmapping tool for product people, sports car & craft
beer enthusiast
Flip Over Your Business
Card
Write 1-3 goals on the back
Hand it up to me
UpUp Labs
4-Part Cure
Vision
Strategy
Goals
Prioritized Ideas
UpUp Labs
The leading supplier of
landscape equipment and
materials to affluent Americans
Vision = What we want to be
when we grow up
UpUp Labs
The go-to source for tweens
and teenage girls around the
world for fun collectibles
Vision = What we want to be
when we grow up
UpUp Labs
The #1 source of B2B contact
information
Vision = What we want to be
when we grow up
UpUp Labs
Strategy
=How you will
achieve your vision
Leverage crowd-sourcing to
develop the largest and most-
accurate B2B contact
database
The #1 source of B2B contact
information
UpUp Labs
Goals =What you need to
achieve to execute
your strategy and
realize your vision
UpUp Labs
The 9 Business Goals
• Growth
• Grow market share
• Fulfill more demand
• Improve recurring revenue
• Create competitive barriers
• Develop new markets
• Profit
• Support higher prices
• Lower COGS
• Lower lifecycle costs
• Leverage assets
Ends vs. Means
• HTML5 Redesign
• Social Integration
• Customer Requests
• Revenue
• Scalability
• Transformational
Ideas
Grow recurring revenue
Grow market share
Competitive barriers
Grow market share
Fulfill more demand
Leverage assets
Goals
The largest and most-accurate B2B contact database
• Fulfill more demand by growing the database by X%
• Create competitive barriers by raising accuracy by Y%
The #1 source of B2B contact information
• Grow revenue by Z% this year by fulfilling more demand
• Test potential new sources of future growth & profit by leveraging existing assets
Bad Ways to Rank Ideas
Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch
Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking
PopularityMost customers are
small
Sales requests Change every week
Services
requestsMostly incremental
Bad Ways to Rank Ideas
Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch
Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking
PopularityMost customers are
small
Sales requests Change every week
Services
requestsMostly incremental
Bad Ways to Rank Ideas
Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch
Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking
PopularityMost customers are
small
Sales requests Change every week
Services
requestsMostly incremental
Bad Ways to Rank Ideas
Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch
Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking
PopularityMost customers are
small
Sales requests Change every week
Services
requestsMostly incremental
Bad Ways to Rank Ideas
Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch
Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking
PopularityMost customers are
small
Sales requests Change every week
Services
requestsMostly incremental
Bad Ways to Rank Ideas
Your CEO’s gut No longer in touch
Analyst opinions Mostly backward-looking
PopularityMost customers are
small
Sales requests Change every week
Services
requestsMostly incremental
Goals + Math = Better
UpUp Labs
Value / Effort = Priority
Value = expected contribution
to goals
Effort = work the organization
must do to realize value
UpUp Labs
Measuring Contribution
• Exact numbers
• 1-10
• 1-100
• Fibonacci
• 1 to 5 stars
• 0,1,2
Estimating Effort
Do NOT ask Engineering for an estimate
Do it yourself
NOT person-months
NOT sprints
0-5 scale
Some Types of Effort
• Development
• Investigation
• Support
• Sales
• Partnership / OEM / Acquisition
• Market Research
• Merchandising
UpUp Labs
Value / Effort = Priority
(G1+G2+G3) / (E1+E2) x Confidence = P
Confidence = Your certainty that your scores
are accurate
Idea G1 G2 E Raw CScor
e
A 1 1 2 1 75% 0.75
B 1 0 2 0.5 90% 0.45
C 2 -1 1 1 40% 0.4
(G1+G2) / E =
Raw
((G1+G2) / E) * C =
Score
UpUp Labs
4-Part Cure
Vision
Strategy
Goals
Prioritized Ideas
Bruce McCarthy
• Chief Product Person,
UpUp Labs
• @d8a_driven
• www.productpowers.com
• www.reqqs.com
• www.slideshare.net/bmm
ccarthy
• www.sohelpful.me/bruce
mccarthy
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