# Outcomes over outputs > Why outcomes over outputs: the difference between what a team ships and what changes because of it, how a feature factory works, how to climb from a feature request to a measurable outcome, and the traps that make an outcome useless. - Course: [Outcome-Based Product Roadmaps](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps.md) - Module: Why roadmaps need a rethink - Lesson 2/15, ~40 min - Source: https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/outcomes-over-outputs ## Output and outcome: what's the difference? **Alex Tutor:** Second lesson, same CatChow product team, and the spreadsheet of product requests is waiting for you. **Dataset (CSV):** [CatChow's request spreadsheet](https://productovi.com/datasets/outcome-based-roadmaps/outcomes-over-outputs/catchow-requests.csv) The 40 feature requests from sales, support and the founders that the product team starts the course with, in the order they sit in the spreadsheet. Synthetic data made for this course. - `id`: Row ID - `request`: The request as written in the spreadsheet - `source`: Who asked: sales, support or the founders **Sofia:** I went through the spreadsheet. Here are the top rows: bulk ordering for clinics, a mobile app, loyalty points, reorder reminders, a new checkout, dark mode. **Alex Tutor:** What do they have in common? **Sofia:** They're all things we'd build? **Alex Tutor:** Right. Each one is an **output**: something the team ships. A feature, a release, a campaign, a document. Output is necessary, but on its own it says nothing about whether anything got better. **Alex Tutor:** An **outcome** is the change the output is supposed to cause, in customer behavior or in business results. Fewer subscribers running out of food. More clinics reordering without calling us. A higher renewal rate. ![Left: a blue delivery van unloads boxes at a front door. Right: inside, a cat eats calmly from a full bowl while its owner relaxes on the sofa.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/outcomes-over-outputs-illustration-2.webp) *Output: what the team ships. Outcome: what changes for customers because of it.* **Sofia:** So “reminders” is the output, and “people reorder before they run out” is the outcome? **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Outputs are what we do; outcomes are what changes because we did it. Our post on [outcome vs output](/blog/outcome-vs-output) adds a third level, impact, with more roadmap examples. > **Exercise:** Which of these are **outcomes** rather than outputs? Select all that apply. ## Feature factory: shipping a lot, moving nothing **Ian:** One more thing for Friday. Last year we shipped all 14 features on the roadmap, on time. Churn hasn't moved. I'd rather the board didn't ask me why. **Sofia:** Ouch. 14 out of 14, and nothing changed? **Alex Tutor:** That's a **feature factory**: a team that measures success by how many features it ships and never checks what they changed for customers or the business. All 14 items were delivered; none of them was aimed at churn. ![A factory conveyor pours identical boxes onto an ever-growing pile while a big dial on the wall stays stuck in the same position.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/outcomes-over-outputs-illustration-3.webp) *Everything shipped on time, and the number that matters didn't move.* **Alex Tutor:** Output roadmaps make this easy. “Build the mobile app” counts as done when the app is in the store, whether or not anyone orders through it. An outcome is done when the number moves. **Sofia:** Doesn't that make outcomes riskier for the team? We could build everything and still fail. **Alex Tutor:** The team was already failing; it just couldn't see it. With outcomes you find out early, and you're free to try a different solution instead of defending the first one. > **Exercise:** If a team ships every roadmap item on time, the roadmap has succeeded. ## Asking why until you reach an outcome **Sofia:** So how do I turn “bulk ordering for clinics” into an outcome? Brandon called PurrPoint this morning. **Brandon:** Here's what I learned. Their admins order by phone every week, one clinic at a time. Orders get mixed up, and twice last month a clinic ran out of a prescription diet and had to send pet owners elsewhere. **Alex Tutor:** Great notes. Now ask “why does that matter?” one step at a time. Why do they want bulk ordering? **Sofia:** To stop ordering by phone, clinic by clinic. Why does that matter? Because orders get mixed up and diets run out. And why does that matter to us? **Alex Tutor:** Because every clinic that runs out sends its clients to a competitor, and PurrPoint could move all 14 clinics away from us. That's our business objective: grow and keep the vet clinic channel. ![A person climbs a ladder whose rungs show a ringing phone, a mixed-up order, an empty clinic shelf and a worried cat, toward a bright platform.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/inline/outcomes-over-outputs-illustration-4.webp) **Sofia:** So the outcome is something like “clinics always have the diets they need, without phoning us”? > **Exercise:** Put the “why” ladder in order, from Brandon's feature request up to CatChow's business objective. ## What makes a good outcome **Alex Tutor:** Nice. Now let's sharpen it. A good outcome names **who** changes, **what** they do differently and **how you'll measure** it. And it doesn't name a solution. **Sofia:** Measure it how? **Alex Tutor:** Pick a signal you can already see or can start tracking: the share of clinic orders placed without a phone call, or prescription-diet stock-outs per month. A baseline and a target turn it into a real goal. **Alex Tutor:** For example: “Prescription-diet stock-outs in partner clinics drop from 6 a month to 1.” Bulk ordering might get us there. So might automatic reorders, or a simple shared order sheet. **Sofia:** And the team gets to choose. **Lucy:** Wait, so I don't have to estimate “bulk ordering” right now? I'd much rather explore two or three options and tell you which one reaches that target most cheaply. **Alex Tutor:** That's the deal: the team commits to the outcome and in return chooses the output. Lucy estimates solutions once she understands the problem, not before. ![The team commits to the outcome, prescription-diet stock-outs in partner clinics falling from 6 a month to 1, and chooses the output: bulk ordering, automatic reorders or a shared sheet.](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/diagrams/m1-l2-outcome-and-options.png) *The outcome is fixed; the solution stays open.* > **Exercise:** CatChow's research shows that subscribers' biggest problem is forgetting to reorder and running out of food. The spreadsheet says “Build a mobile app”. Which rewrite is the best outcome? ## Outputs in disguise **Sofia:** Let me try one: “Launch loyalty points in Q2 to increase engagement.” That has a why in it! **Alex Tutor:** It has a feature, a date and a fuzzy word. What would “engagement” look like in the data? Who does what more often? **Sofia:** Hmm. Customers buy again sooner? Spend more per order? **Alex Tutor:** Now you're getting there. Watch for four traps: an outcome that names a solution, one you can't measure, one so broad the team can't influence it, and an output in disguise such as “launch X by Q2”. **Alex Tutor:** “Grow company revenue by 30%” is the too-broad kind. It's a fine business objective, but no single team can move it alone. Break it down into something a team can actually influence. > **Exercise:** Match each flawed outcome to its main problem. **Alex Tutor:** Now the founders' favorite idea. What would you ask first? > **Exercise:** The founders want loyalty points “because every competitor has one”. What is the most useful next question? **Alex Tutor:** One more test: PurrPoint wants something it can put in the contract. Which offer gives the client the outcome instead of a feature? > **Exercise:** PurrPoint wants something it can put in the contract. Which offer from Brandon commits CatChow to an outcome and still gives the client something concrete? **Alex Tutor:** And back to the deal with Lucy: two ways to hand the clinic problem to her team. Which one keeps it? > **Exercise:** Which brief gives Lucy's team the outcome to commit to and leaves them free to choose the output? ## Your turn: loyalty points **Sofia:** OK, I want to try one from the spreadsheet myself. Loyalty points: the founders love that idea. **Alex Tutor:** Then ask what the founders hope it will change. Loyalty points are usually meant to bring customers back sooner or to stop them drifting to competitors. **Sofia:** And if they just say “every competitor has one”? **Alex Tutor:** Then it's a copy, not a goal. Ask what the competitors' customers actually do differently because of it. That change is the outcome worth writing down. **Alex Tutor:** Write the outcome without mentioning points at all. If the sentence still makes sense, you've found the real goal. **Sofia:** And add a number, so we know when we've got there. > **Exercise:** One row in CatChow's spreadsheet of 40 feature requests from sales, support and the founders says “Add a loyalty points program”. CatChow's data: 38% of first-time buyers place a second order within 60 days. Rewrite the request as an outcome with a measurable signal, without mentioning points or any other solution. ## Back to PurrPoint **Brandon:** OK, I get the idea. But what do I tell PurrPoint now? They want something they can put in the contract. **Alex Tutor:** Offer the outcome instead of the feature. The clinics don't really care about “bulk ordering”. They care about never running out of prescription diets and not spending an hour on the phone. **Sofia:** And we can commit to working on that and reporting progress, without promising a specific feature by April. **Alex Tutor:** Right. You might even invite their admins to try early versions. Clients trust a team that is solving their problem more than one that only promises a feature. **Brandon:** A pilot I can sell. A vague “we're working on it” I can't. **Alex Tutor:** Fair. That's why the outcome needs a number and a concrete first step. Write the message for him. > **Exercise:** Write a message Brandon can send to PurrPoint (2–4 sentences). Instead of “bulk ordering by April”, state the outcome CatChow will work on and what CatChow can commit to now. ## Case: a bookstore's quarterly plan **Alex Tutor:** Last exercise, on another company. An online bookstore sent me its quarterly plan. It's six outputs and not a single outcome. **Sofia:** Let me guess: one of them doesn't serve any goal at all. **Alex Tutor:** Maybe. Your job is to work out what each output is for, group them under a few outcomes and say how you'd measure each one. **Sofia:** Outputs under outcomes. Got it. **Alex Tutor:** One hint: start from the three facts the team already knows, not from the list. The list comes second, as a pool of possible solutions. > **Exercise:** Rewrite Chapterly's quarterly plan as outcomes. ## What to remember **Sofia:** So my spreadsheet isn't useless. It's a pile of possible outputs, and my job is to find the outcomes they're meant for. **Alex Tutor:** And some rows will turn out to serve no outcome at all. Those are the easiest decisions you'll make this week. **Alex Tutor:** Exactly. Next time we'll give those outcomes the shape of a real roadmap: vision, objectives, themes, timeframes and a disclaimer. A theme, by the way, is an outcome for customers. > **Key ideas** > > - **Output** is what the team ships; an **outcome** is the change in customer behavior or business results that the output is meant to cause. > - A **feature factory** counts releases and never checks what changed. > - Ask “why does that matter?” until you climb from a feature to an outcome and a business objective. > - A good outcome names who changes, what they do differently and how you'll measure it, and it leaves the solution open. > - Beware of outputs in disguise, unmeasurable wishes and goals too broad for one team. - Previous lesson: [What a roadmap is (and isn't)](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/what-is-a-product-roadmap.md) - Next lesson: [Anatomy of a product roadmap: five components and an example](https://productovi.com/courses/outcome-based-roadmaps/roadmap-components.md) --- Productovi Learning. Free, no sign-up needed to read.