How do you define between a customer(s) want or request and a feature that is actually needed?

If it's something that's truly needed, you will see many customers asking for the same thing. You can validate this by speaking to other customers or running a survey to assess business needs. Sometimes when you dig a bit deeper, you discover that they have a pain point that could be solved a completely different / better way, so I wouldn't always take what they say at face value. Additionally, if it's critical to their business, you will also see customers churning to competitors who do offer i ...Read More

I'd say this is a volume game where you have to look for patterns while also thinking about your growth model and ideal customer profile. Given these data points you might find that out of the list of feature requests, a handful are commonly requested and and even smaller subset are commonly requested by your most valuable customers. Focusing on these will not only help your current customers but help you win future deals as well.  Another valuable thing to consider here is buidling a developer ...Read More

Repeatability.  Customers are asking for a feature because they believe the need it. Nobody has time to invent frivolous features for companies they don't work for. As a result, there's always an element of truth to every request. The trick to determine whether you should add a capability to your roadmap most frequently comes down to, "how many other companies would benefit from this feature?" If it's a one-off, you still have to value that one-off. But if it's something that's broadly applicabl ...Read More

My first thought is: Have you asked your PM this exact question? ;) In my experience, balancing customer wants and needs is typically handled by the PM, while PMM supports recommendations based on market and customer intelligence. How we handle this is by answering a handful of questions: What is the customer trying to do? What’s the best way to help the customer achieve this (based on time, money, resources, experience, etc.)? Can we help the customer do it better, faster, and/or cheaper? What ...Read More