Building Best Product: Wheel of the Best Product( From The Product Owner Guidebook)

11 min readAug 13, 2022

Based on my two decades of work with all product companies in the world, I am seeing a common pattern.

Working with all these product based companies GE Medical Systems, Honeywell, ABB, Societe Generale, Royal Dutch Shell, Samsung, and H&M, I am discovering a universal pattern in product building.

While serving with all these product companies again gave me the opportunity to work with team members of the USA, Germany, Sweden, China, Australia, Finland, Switzerland, France, Poland, London, Korea, and the Netherlands, and the Product-culture correlation and reflecting around product development and building learnings.

And the domain these companies operate like Oil and Gas, Banking Software, Healthcare, Aerospace, Building Automation, Power automation, Industrial Automaton, Consumer electronics, and Retail under real-time mission-critical product development to large-scale application development gave a wisdom into the product development exploration pattern

Spokes of the wheel of the best products

Study around many excellent products, you will encounter the fundamental few drivers to build the best products are these.

Right Customer
Right Technology
Right Process
Right Leadership
Right Team
Right Culture
Right Marketing
Right Experience

“At the end of the day, your job isn’t to get the requirements right — your job is to change the world.” — Jeff Patton, Veteran Product Manager and Consultant

[Right Leadership]

“Customer love means two sides of the same coin to me. On one side is knowing your customer and building fantastic experiences for them. Your dedication and passion to making their life easier and delighting them feeds into the other side. When approached this way, not only will you have a loyal user base, they will also be your strongest advocates and critics.” — Andrew Wang, Senior Product Manager at Gap

[ Right Customer]

“A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.” — Deep Nishar, Vice President of Product at LinkedIn

[ Right Technology]

“If you are not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” — Reid Garrett Hoffman, Entrepreneur

[Right Process]

Simplicity is not the absence of clutter, that’s a consequence of simplicity. Simplicity is somehow essentially describing the purpose and place of an object and product. The absence of clutter is just a clutter-free product. — Jonathan Ive

[ Right Experience]

“We have a culture where we are incredibly self critical, we don’t get comfortable with our success.” — Mark Parker, CEO, Nike

[ Right Culture]

“Hire great people and give them freedom to be awesome.” — Andrew Mason, Founder, Groupon

[ Right Team]

“Build something 100 people love, not something 1 million people kind of like.” — Brian Chesky, Co-Founder & CEO, Airbnb

[ Right Marketing]

Look at the below lists, how did they get to this rank?

How 8 spoke of the product & service wheel must be developed?

Eight Forces to stimulate the best product development

Eight Forces to stimulate the best product development

1. What customer problems is this product solving?

2. What technology enablement is taking place to deal with the customer problem?

3. What process steps are implemented to figure out the customer problem?

4. What are all marketing approaches adopted to reach the customer to work out their problem?

5. How has the experience been designed to safeguard customer satisfaction?

6. How the culture has been enabling to work out the customer problem.

7. How teams are engaged to persuade adequate customer satisfaction.

8. How leaders are driving to encourage all the stakeholders are aligned to work out the customer problem.

Let us talk about 4 foundations of the outstanding products ( Internal to the organization)

1. Excellent Culture for Product Development

2. Excellent Leadership for Product Development

3. Excellent Team for Product Development

4. Excellent Process for Product Development

and the next 4 are ( Extraneous towards the market)

5. Excellent Technology for the Product

6. Excellent experience for the Product

7. Excellent Marketing for the Product

8. Excellent Customers for The Product

Find the Right Customer, make them stay,
Guide their journey, all the way.
Choose the Right Tech, sharp and smart,
Build it strong, from the start.
Set the Right Process, keep it lean,
Drive it forward, clear and clean.
Lead with Strength, with vision bright,
Empower teams, to reach new heights.
Build the Right Team, skills combined,
Talent and trust, well-aligned.
Shape the Right Culture, let ideas soar,
Innovation thrives at the core.
Market it Right, make the buzz,
Create the value, they’ll discuss.
Deliver Experience, that feels just right,
Keep them coming, day and night.

What I am observing is all the Best Products have these 8 elements strongly developed. I am calling them Spokes of the Wheel!

How do we assess these spokes of the best product to test if we are building the best products?

Right Customer:

Customers are recommending our products & services to others
Customers continue using our product & services
Customers are feeling convenient using our product or service
Customers are interested in checking out other products or services
Customers are aware of the top three features that are most valuable to them in our product & Service
We are able to meet customer expectations in terms of product quality, features, and build
Customer rate high score on 1–10 scale of satisfaction?
Customers rate high scores in a 1–10 scale of value that we provide for the money that they pay
The customer gives us feedback to enhance the product and service quality

Right Technology:

Will this technology be able to deal with the business problems we have? [ Feature]
Does my team members feel comfortable using the technology or picking up for the development?
Does the technology be flexible to adopt the solution we are building?
Does the technology have a roadmap for future upgrades/updates?
Does this technology scalable?
Does this technology secure?
Does this technology help us to integrate with other technology/services?
Does this technology help in troubleshooting/bug fixing?
Does this technology have a smooth user experience and user interface?
Does this technology have a satisfying user base?
Does this technology have an easy pricing model for usage?

Right Process:

How do we ensure that we know the Why, what, and when of the product? And the team to do how part?
How do we know what not to build on the product?
What will be the main value proposition of our new product? What makes it unique from competitive alternatives?
How will we build the product or buy the product, or maintain the product?
How will we validate customer acceptance and improve it?
How will we fund the product for expansion?
How is the product pricing model employed and evolved?
How will we build the product portfolio?
How will we discover what problems consumers have with similar existing products on the market?
How will we discover and address the problems consumers have with our products and solutions?
How will we collect and address the feedback consumers have with our products and solutions?
How are we going to collect the data to evaluate the performance of our product and improve it?
How long do we hope our solution works before having to redesign or revisit it? How do we know if it would be worth the investment given its projected longevity?
How are our tools and technology enabling us to resolve problems on a fast scale?
How do we know our limitations and how we will work around them: timeline, budget, scope, technical prowess, product usage, customer satisfaction?
How do we know when we are ready to ship? How will we know when to stop to avoid diminishing returns? How do we define and measure our success criteria?
How do we build our North Star metrics?
How do we engage our team members in the different initiatives we have?
How do we know what the product challenges for our product portfolio will be in the coming years?
How do we plan to meet business goals and generate revenue based on evolving customer behavior?

Right Leadership:

Does our leader ensure a safe working environment where they can partner with their team members to ensure consolidated team growth and achievement of goals?
Do our leaders lead by example?
Do our leaders make critical long-term decisions and have a broad perspective to exceed their clients’ expectations while achieving team/company goals with finesse and exactitude?
Do our leaders push the envelope into bringing fresh, original ideas to salvage a business process from hitting a dead end?
Do our leaders know how to address the underperforming team member’s motivation level and underlying issues by designing solid plans for our employees to train them on effective self-management to attain their full potential?
Does our leader know how to monitor our team’s performance?
Do our leaders know how to keep the lines of communication open and transparent, fill gaps in communication, offer employee recognition, maximize team productivity, and prevent sagging morale?
Does our leader know how to lead through the changes in the digital era?
Does our leader know how to proceed with the team reorganization based on the changing demand?
Does our leader know How to build support for ideas/goals with people who do not report to him/her and where he/she does not have authority over others?
Does our leader know how to achieve goals and objectives in a fast-paced environment?
Does our leader know? How to go about getting cohesion among a team that disagrees?
Does our leader know how to deal with the disappointment of product failure?
Do our leaders know how to build and execute a product strategic vision?
Do our leaders know how to review market research and provide feedback to improve?
Do our leaders know how to gain credibility from tough customers in tough markets?

Right Team:

Does our team know what our customers value? And what are their needs?
Do our team members frequently reflect and improve?
Do our team members take commitment seriously and deliver the committed goals?
Do our team members discipline to improve team performance and effectiveness?
Do our team members set stretch goals and support each other to achieve the same?
Do all the team members have a set purpose and are aligned with an organizational goal?
Do our team members feel safe challenging each other in a constructive way?
Do our team members know where the organization is heading in the 3–5 yrs timeline?
Do our team members share the same values and vision?
Do our team members feel the communication lines are open and effectively using the same?
Have there been 0 % attrition in the last 1 year within the team?
Do team members are able to learn new things in the last 6 months and feel energetic due to this?
Team members expressed a better satisfaction rate and increased engagement resulted in increased engagement.
We can find mutual accountability and a clear understanding of members’ responsibilities to the team and individual obligations.
We can find a diverse range of expertise that complements other team members’ abilities.
We can find great interdependence and trust among our members.
Teams support real-time problem-solving and are more flexible and responsive to changing demands.

Right Culture:

Do our team members feel proud to work for the team and company?
Do our team members get support to enhance their knowledge through great learning opportunities?
Do our team members feel safe experimenting and failing?
Do our team members openly discuss the conflicts and resolve them themselves?
Do our team members feel the confidence to approach anyone in the organization irrespective of role or hierarchy?
Do our teams celebrates often wherever there is an opportunity to do so?
Do our team members get flexibility in choosing the role, work, timing, etc. related to work?
Do our leaders connect frequently with team members for coaching, mentoring, and training?
Is feedback vertical and horizontal a norm among the team members?
Do our team members feel that their work has been valued?
Do our team members know that their feedback has been taken care of?
Do our team members find that their colleagues are the best in the industry (attract the best talent)?
Do team members find that policies are more people-oriented?
Do team members find that their frequent offsite team outings are taking place to enhance team bonding?
Team members are able to contribute to many innovative ideas.
Do team members recommend their manager to other team members?
Team members are doing frequent team outings such as dinner parties, celebrating birthdays, etc together.
Do your team members inspire each other through their charismatic work?
Do team members voluntarily contribute to corporate social responsibility initiatives?

Right Marketing:

Is there a process in place to convey that new product features are coming( Product Marketing strategy)?
Measurements are in place for customer satisfaction?
Measurements are in place for customer experience?
Your products are recommended by your customer to other people?
There is a constant work going on with the customer to understand their concern and address those.
There is constant work is going on to improve brand acceptance.
There is constant work to identify your competitor and to be strong in your competitive advantage.
Is there data to track, measure, and make the decision about the product selling, attraction, and trend?
There is a measure to capture Omni channel customer experience?
There is an investment in a different market to capture the attention of the customer?
There are constant different A/B tests going on?
Team members recognize what customer problems they are solving and what are their unique selling proposing
Team members are aware of how the marketing message has changed over a period of 2–3 yrs and it is improving
Team members measure metrics which guide them to know about the marketing campaign and success
Team members are aware of what promotional methods our customers/potential customers are most likely to see, notice, and be interested in.
Team members are cognizant of what features and benefits are customers willing to pay very little or nothing for?

Right Experience:

Team knows who uses their products?
The team knows what their products do and for whom.
Team knows how users use their products?
Does the team know users’ challenges in their work where their solutions solve the problem?
Does the team know what users like and dislike?
Does the team know the user’s special needs?
The team knows users’ changing needs and they are in constant touch to upgrade their products and services.
The team does constant research about technology, users, and problem space to improve.
The team is using the latest tools to address the user usability needs?
The team knows experience development is a highly collaborative exercise with the users and they do this diligently
The team is capturing the data and analyzing it to decide the experience quality and challenges
There is constant support people are available to help end users to resolve their queries
There is a guideline document provided to the users to self-troubleshoot basic issue

What do you think about this Wheel of Best Product?

Please share your comments……