Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

by Melissa Perri

I once worked with a company that made a data platform for enterprise companies. It had a total of 30 features, with about 40 more on the backlog, when I came in. When I measured the customer use of those existing features, we discovered people used only 2% of them consistently. And yet, development was underway to add more, instead of trying to reevaluate what they already had. How did they end up there? A few reasons, and these apply to many companies stuck in the build trap. The company was playing a game of catch-up—trying to fast-follow its competitors on every feature it released. It didn’t even know whether these features were working out well for their competitors, but management insisted on parity. This is the same trap Google+ fell into with Facebook—​never differentiating enough, just copying.