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

by Melissa Perri

We are done developing or iterating on a feature only when it has reached its goals. Often, teams ship a first version of the feature and then move on to the next, without measuring the outcomes for the user. As Jeff Gothelf, the author of Sense & Respond, once said, “Version 2 is the biggest lie in software development.” This mentality always leads to the build trap. Instead, teams should be working like the team at Marquetly, by setting the success criteria before launch, while measuring and iterating until they reach it. Version 1 should be looked at as a hypothesis, just like any other work. And, if we launch the feature and it is not hitting our goals, we need to be comfortable rolling it back and trying something else.