As a product lead, how do you decide when to sunset a feature vs keep iterating on it? What is the right balance for an agile squad/product?
VP of Product Management in Banking, 10,001+ employees
It's a crucial decision which needs to be taken in right time to not loose the users and following things need to be analyzed time to time-a. User Feedback and Usage- User feedback on the feature and Usage analytics is key lead indicator of how the feature is performing, if Usage is high but User feedback is negative then feature is must and needs to be iterated but if Usage is low and user feedback is also negative then the feature is loosing charm in the market- time to sunset.
b. Tech Debt - From development side what's the tech debt of the feature - tech debt in simple terms means the coding complexity created by development team to fast-track the feature which becomes the bottleneck later as lot of rework is required if you want to tweak the feature later on. In high tech debt case feature sunset and start from scratch is suggested for iteration.
c. Business value- What's the business value coming from the feature- is this the focus area/lever for the business to grow if yes then keep iterating if not then plan sunsetting roadmap
d. Cost benefit analysis- cost of keeping the feature vs the the business benefit feature is providing needs to be analyzed. if cost outweighs benefit then sunset else keep iterating.
This needs to be part of regular cadence in the agile squad with Product Lead. Feature agile squad should consist of 1-2 Product Managers and 5 dev,1 scrum master but squad numbers purely depends upon the scope & complexity of the feature.
GVP in Software, 10,001+ employees
Adding to chime in as well. Really appreciate the great, insightful responses!Director of Product Management in Services (non-Government), 10,001+ employees
A feature once built should on regular intervals under the same discovery process a PM would do for a new feature. The business case should tally to continue to invest or maintain a feature. I go through the discovery process as though the feature doesn’t exist, if the results are closer to the feature that is built I continue, if the results are different it is an opportunity to do something new/modern in place of the existing feature. Sunsetting a feature has two phases - 1. Discovery process results in a feature that is no longer used/needed or has a new avatar calling to pivot the existing one. This could be due to technical debt based limitation needs as well.2. The business case to support it doesn’t tally by carefully considering the customer churn if any.
One recent example where I ended up sun setting a feature was when partnering with another offering made more sense than continuing to invest in a feature that was a sink hole and demanded changing the DNA of my offering.
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CTO in Software, 201 - 500 employees
Without a doubt - Technical Debt! It's a ball and chain that creates an ever increasing drag on any organization, stifles innovation, and prevents transformation.VP of Global IT and Cybersecurity in Manufacturing, 501 - 1,000 employees
Teams and planner is great, Azure DevOps is also awesome.
For us, the key to the decision above is to make it as fact-based as possible. Knowing such things as how many customers use a feature, how big the technical debt is, customer satisfaction, market alternatives, profitability, etc. are all key to making informed, focused decisions. In this way we can avoid some of the emotional challenges and instead focus on the facts which lead to a decision. That being said, it is always paramount for the PM to take the leading role in this decision. Too often the drivers for sunset come from other teams (e.g. too many calls, etc.) but those shouldnt drive the decision. They can however, inform the choices so that the PM makes the hard call.