Glossaries
Feature Factory
What is a Feature Factory?
A Feature Factory is a product development approach where teams focus primarily on churning out new features without sufficient consideration for their impact on user value or business outcomes. This approach often prioritizes quantity over quality and can lead to bloated products that don't effectively meet user needs.
Synonyms: Feature Churn, Feature Mill, Feature Treadmill, Output-Driven Development
Why Feature Factories are Problematic
Feature Factories can be detrimental to product success. They often result in:
- Misalignment with user needs and business goals
- Increased product complexity without proportional value
- Reduced focus on measuring and learning from outcomes
- Decreased team morale due to lack of meaningful impact
How to Avoid Becoming a Feature Factory
To steer clear of the Feature Factory trap:
- Prioritize outcome-driven development
- Implement regular feature audits
- Foster a culture of experimentation and learning
- Align features with clear user needs and business objectives
Examples of Feature Factory Behavior
Common signs of a Feature Factory include:
- Measuring success by the number of features shipped
- Lack of post-launch analysis on feature impact
- Constantly adding new features without removing underperforming ones
- Prioritizing stakeholder requests over user needs and data-driven decisions
Frequently Asked Questions
- What's the main problem with Feature Factories?: The main issue is that they focus on output (number of features) rather than outcomes (actual value for users and the business).
- How can product managers prevent Feature Factory syndrome?: By focusing on user needs, setting clear success metrics for features, and regularly evaluating the impact of shipped features.
- Is it ever okay to rapidly produce features?: Yes, in certain situations like early-stage startups trying to find product-market fit. However, it should be a deliberate, time-bound strategy, not a long-term approach.
- What's the opposite of a Feature Factory?: An outcome-driven product development process that prioritizes solving user problems and achieving business goals over simply shipping features.