It’s great when you get the chance to learn from someone more experienced. During a discussion with Kevin Kamau, a Senior Product Manager at Basware, on innovating within corporate product teams, he shared a valuable lesson that really stuck with me. It’s something I want to apply as I grow in my journey as a Product Manager (PM), and I believe it’s worth sharing.
As product managers, we often focus on features—the outputs. But do we stop to ask: What is the user trying to achieve? What problem are we solving for them? What is the outcome the customer is looking for?
To dive deeper into this idea, I had an insightful discussion with Kevin. Here’s how it went:
Q: What is an Outcome, and what is an Output in simple terms? What’s the difference between them?
Kevin: Let’s use an analogy. Imagine you’re baking a loaf of bread. The bread itself is the output—it’s the thing you deliver. But the outcome is what the bread achieves: it satisfies someone’s hunger.
Now, let’s put this in a product context. Say you’re responsible for creating a financial dashboard. The dashboard is the output—it’s the product you deliver. But the outcome is what happens because of that dashboard. Are we able to increase revenue thanks to insights from the dashboard? That’s the outcome.
To put it simply: Output is what we deliver. Outcome is the real-world impact of what we deliver.
Q: Why is it important for product managers to focus on outcomes rather than outputs? What are the pitfalls of focusing on outputs?
Kevin: Let’s go back to our bread analogy. If your focus is only on outputs, you might bake a thousand loaves of bread, which sounds impressive. But if the people you’re serving aren’t hungry, those loaves will go to waste.
Instead, if you focus on feeding a thousand hungry people, you’ll bake only the loaves you truly need to satisfy their hunger.
The same applies to product management. You might deliver amazing dashboards, features, or tools, but if they don’t solve a real customer problem, they’ll go to waste.
When you focus too much on outputs, you risk missing the bigger picture—the why. Sure, you’ll meet delivery targets and release features, but if those features don’t solve real problems or help users achieve their goals, it’s wasted effort.
Q: How do you identify what is an Outcome?
Kevin: It starts with simple but powerful questions:
- What is the end goal for the people using this?
- What will change in their lives because of it?
Outcomes are about impact, not just deliverables. Stay focused on what success looks like for the customer or user—not just for your team.
Q: Can you give an example of how focusing on outcomes leads to better products?
Kevin: It’s easy for PMs to get caught up in the operational side of things. Outputs are tangible—they’re a way to stay busy and show progress. But focusing on outcomes forces you to think about value.
For example, if your team measures success by the number of features delivered, you might end up shipping a lot of things that don’t matter. But if you measure success by the impact of those features—what they enable users to do or achieve—you’ll focus on what truly moves the needle for both the customer and the business.
Outcomes require you to ask: What does success look like? What does “good” look like for the customer? It’s not about being busy; it’s about creating real value.
Final Thoughts
Kevin’s advice made me think about how I could apply this to my work, what more I should be doing to understand the goals of our customers, the problems my team and I are trying to solve for them and not solely become occupied with new feature development.
His words reminded me of advice I recently heard from Christian Idiodi, Managing Partner at Silicon Valley Product Group, on Lenny’s Podcast. He said:
“Care enough about a problem, solve it on someone’s behalf, and do it well enough that they’re willing to give you something in return for it.”
That’s the essence of product management: solving problems that matter.
How do you ensure you’re focusing on outcomes in your work? Share your thoughts in the comments—I’d love to hear how others approach this challenge.