You spend months — sometimes years — building a new feature. Once it's shipped you celebrate, and move onto the next thing. But product development isn't exclusively new feature development. In this talk, Amy will draw on her experience killing products at high-scale businesses. You'll learn why product development teams should constantly evaluate their product portfolio, some techniques to help you always-be-evaluating, and some advice on how to gracefully deprecate your products.

1. @amyzima
Killing products

2. Building products is
exhausting.

3. About me.
Product Manager
at Spotify.
iOS &Android consumer
experience

5. Why should I
kill products?

8. Usability
bloat?

9. Or
necessary
complexity?

10. Cost &
value.

11. - Physical — storage, data processing
Cost
- Time — ongoing & unforeseen maintenance
- Usability — confusing user flows
- Strategic — part of the business’s portfolio

12. - Customer — does it add value for your users?
Value
- Strategic — does this help the business? is it a
priority?

13. When should I kill a
product?

14. It’s the end
of a whole
product’s
life.

15. It’s a feature
that’s past
its sell-by
date.

16. - It’s blocking a development that adds more value
Decision points for deprecation
- It’s a security risk
- It’s no longer adding value
- It’s confusing users
- It has a bug that will take too much effort to fixForced
hand
Inten-
tional

17. Feature cost
Feature value
Kill
Be wary
The
sweet
spot
Keep an
eye on
Framework —
Evaluate your
feature
portfolio.

18. Feature name User value Maintenance Usage Strategic value

19. Feature name User value Maintenance Usage Strategic value
Login High High High High

20. Feature name User value Maintenance Usage Strategic value
Login High High High High
Colour setting Medium Low Low Low

21. Feature name User value Maintenance Usage Strategic value
Login High High High High
Colour setting Medium Low Low Low
Bookmarking Medium High Low Medium

22. Feature name User value Maintenance Usage Strategic value
Login 1 3 1 1
Colour setting 2 3 3 3
Bookmarking 2 1 3 2
= 6
= 11
= 8

23. How should I kill a
product?

24. 1. Get consensus
internally.

25. 2. Pick a date,
announce, and stick to
it.

26. 3. Explain your
decision to your users.

27. 4.Ask for feedback.

28. 5. Celebrate &
mourn.

30. - Got internal consensus
- Gave notice to users in the app
- Provided instructions on how to save the web app
to desktop
- Asked for direct feedback in a blog post
How we did it

31. • Always-be-evaluating
• Rip off the band aid before it’s too late
• Communicate, communicate, communicate

32. Thank you.
@amyzima