A growing emphasis on achieving meaningful user behaviour changes rather than simply delivering features marks a significant shift in product management practices, with frameworks like the Triple Diamond Model leading the way.
In the contemporary landscape of product management, the conventional approach of treating product roadmaps as mere feature lists is increasingly seen as ineffective and ultimately counterproductive. According to Eva Nudea Hörner in a recent Medium article, the core issue lies in teams focusing on shipping features and meeting deadlines without validating whether these efforts truly impact user behaviour or business outcomes. This reactive, feature-driven mindset leads to wasted resources and missed opportunities for genuine growth and differentiation.
Hörner underscores a fundamental shift necessary for successful product management: from simply delivering features to achieving meaningful product outcomes. Outcomes represent changes in user behaviour—such as increased adoption, reduced friction, or higher engagement—that are leading indicators of success. In contrast, traditional business outcomes like revenue, retention, and market share are lagging indicators, only reflecting success after the fact when it’s too late to pivot. Aligning product efforts to drive these behavioural changes is critical because when product outcomes improve, the business outcomes naturally follow.
This perspective is strongly supported in broader product management discourse. Industry experts consistently highlight the limitations of feature-driven roadmaps, which tend to be rigid, difficult to align with stakeholder expectations, and poorly adaptable to evolving market needs. For example, ProductPlan notes that outcome-driven roadmaps offer greater clarity and flexibility by focusing on achieving specific objectives, rather than just delivering predetermined features. This approach facilitates alignment across teams and supports iterative learning and adaptation, which are vital for sustained product success.
Similarly, ProdPad and ProductStrides articulate that outcome-based roadmaps are not only about the ‘what’ but also the ‘why’—focusing on desired results encourages teams to remain flexible, prioritise value, and deliver features that truly matter to users. These roadmaps integrate smoothly with goal-setting frameworks like OKRs, allowing product goals to be measurable, actionable, and strategically relevant. Roman Pichler adds that outcome-based roadmaps improve stakeholder engagement by providing a shared vision centred on product goals rather than an endless list of features, which often breeds confusion and misalignment.
Hörner also highlights the importance of collaborative cross-functional teams, notably the “Product Trio” of Product Management, Design, and Engineering. This team shares responsibility for the product outcome, moving beyond siloed roles focused solely on delivery or design polish. The synergy among these disciplines enables a shared focus on changing user behaviour and driving success.
To embed these changes in practice, Hörner champions the Triple Diamond Model, an extension of the traditional Double Diamond design process. Zendesk’s Triple Diamond integrates discovery and delivery phases, combining problem identification, solution exploration, and effective implementation. This continuous loop ensures teams build the right product and build it right, turning validated concepts into scalable solutions while learning from each iteration. This approach echoes broader best practices in design thinking, as emphasised by Dinker.in, stressing early engagement and strategic planning.
The practical impact of embracing discovery and outcome-focused roadmaps is profound. Teams waste less time on irrelevant features, reduce rework, and create products that genuinely meet user needs and business objectives. Discovery activities yield artefacts—such as journey maps, personas, and opportunity backlogs—that preserve insights and guide ongoing decision-making, preventing valuable knowledge from being lost in transient discussions.
According to LogRocket’s analysis inspired by Teresa Torres’ work, outcome-driven roadmaps also prioritise the metrics that indicate traction, facilitating ongoing validation against company goals and enabling continuous course correction.
In summary, the shift from feature lists to outcome-driven roadmaps, supported by frameworks like the Triple Diamond Model and empowered by collaborative teams, marks a paradigm change in product development. It moves organisations away from reactive, output-focused modes toward strategic, impact-oriented practices that unlock real user value, drive business growth, and maintain a competitive edge in ever-changing markets. This evolution is essential for any product team aiming to transcend “feature factory” status and create lasting value through thoughtful, user-centred innovation.
Source: Noah Wire Services
