For many Agile teams, delivering software is the end of a journey. We ship one feature, have a beer, and move on to the next highest feature on the product backlog. However, shipping software is simply the beginning. Several studies cite that users on average use less than 30% of the features in a software application, yet our goals and metrics seem aligned with shipping more features. Agile teams talk more about increasing throughput or reducing cycle time than building features that better engaging with their users, so in some ways, Agile has actually accelerated the pace of ‘feature-itis.’

1. HELPING PEOPLE
CREATE GREAT PRODUCTS
CURING FEATURITIS

2. First, a little about me
● CEO & Co-Founder, Pendo
Prior
● VP Products, Rally Software
● CTO / Co-Founder, 6th Sense Analytics
● Chief Scientist, Borland
● VP Development, TogetherSoft
● CTO / Co-Founder Cerebellum Software
Tweet @tolson
#curingfeaturitis

3. It's true: most of the GS4's
featurettes aren't essential -- and
some aren't even very useful, like
the camera's Eraser mode, which I
never got to work [...]
Samsung charges too much for
extra features that are largely
unnecessary and poorly
implemented... Its big Achilles' heel,
aside from its cluttered interface...

4. What is Featuritis?
Kathy Sierra, Creating Passionate Users

5. Process for Curing Featuritis
BUILD
MEASURE
GUIDELEARN

6. VALUE > THROUGHPUT

7. METRICS DYSFUNCTION

9. More upfront work? Surveys. Scoring...

10. DARK COFFEE?

11. “Critical failing of user interviews
is that you’re asking people to
either remember past use or
speculate on future use of a
system.”
- Jakob Nielsen

12. VS

13. DON’T TRY TO PREDICT
BUILD
MEASURELEARN
EXPERIMENT

14. NOT ALL
QUESTIONS/SURVEYS
BAD.
FOCUS ON PROBLEM
AND ITERATE.

15. Build Slack to Incorporate Learnings
Plan for the Best
&
Worst...

17. Smartphone Usage
Send a text message
Download an App 50%
80%
5%
Movie tickets
Airline boarding passes

18. NOT KNOWING?
VS.
NOT GOOD?
VS.
NOT USEFUL?
1
2
3

19. “Before [Office 2007], 90% of the feature requests the Office team
received were for features that Office already supported. The
functionality was there, but users couldn’t discover it.
Word 2007 and Excel 2007 users are now using four times as many
features as they used in previous versions, and for PowerPoint, the
increase in feature use is a factor of five.

20. Using your software likely isn’t your
users’ full time jobs!
● In-App Guides
● Emails
● Webinars
● Phone calls

21. Should a good UI require
guidance or simply be
discoverable?

22. 5 seconds
The average attention span
30-40x / hr
Average # of times an
office works checks email

23. Imagine building software to support this?

24. Guide your users to collect
better data. When we’re
experimenting, there are too
many unknowns.

25. Usability studies help w/
implementation

26. Usability Testing + Agile
● Cheaper techniques
● Usability test larger (more value-driving)
features
● Measure funnels
● A/B Testing

27. A/B Testing can help understand
implementation

28. NOT KNOWING?
VS.
NOT GOOD?
VS.
NOT USEFUL?
1
2
3
Now measuring usage over time can provide actionable insights.

30. Which is better?
Feature A
25 min/user/day
Feature B
5 min/user/day

31. More information
Feature A
25 min/user/day
Automates something
that typically takes 10
minutes.
Feature B
5 min/user/day
Automates something
that typically takes 1
hr.

32. Beware of Vanity Metrics

33. WHAT ARE THE GOAL(S) OF YOUR
SOFTWARE?
WHAT PROBLEMS ARE YOU
SOLVING?
HOW ARE YOU PROVIDING VALUE
TO YOUR USERS?

34. Seek Correlations
● Size of customer correlates to…
● Role of user correlates to…
● First-time user do X, power users do Y
● 90% of our customers that < do this > renew
-- this increased switching costs

35. Feature Funnels
Start OUTCOME!
GOAL: Help users achieve the outcome as quickly
and easily as possible

36. Use web marketing techniques to
understand your features

37. Eliminate Features
Path A
Path B
Ordering

38. Arguments against removing features
● More features drive
price performance.
● Cannot take things
away.
● We’ll lose deals.
UNDERSTAND WHETHER THE FEATURE IS A VALUE
DRIVER OR SIMPLY TABLE STAKES

40. 1. Don’t try to predict. Experiment more.
2. Guide users for better data.
3. Remember the goal is value.

44. HELPING PEOPLE
CREATE GREAT PRODUCTS
www.pendo.io/agile2014
@tolson

45. Appendix