[{"data":1,"prerenderedAt":132},["ShallowReactive",2],{"site-header":3,"home-page":13,"home-articles":28},{"id":4,"title":5,"bannerText":6,"extension":7,"logoText":8,"meta":9,"nav":10,"stem":11,"__hash__":12},"site\u002Fsite\u002Fheader.json","Surjit Bharath","","json","Surjit",{},[],"site\u002Fheader","ZQsRFwlWeRYanxZWuntMekb0aieHeK9PWZdtHlRIMrE",{"id":14,"title":6,"body":15,"description":6,"extension":21,"meta":22,"navigation":23,"path":24,"seo":25,"stem":26,"__hash__":27},"pages\u002Findex.md",{"type":16,"value":17,"toc":18},"minimark",[],{"title":6,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":20},2,[],"md",{},true,"\u002F",{"description":6},"index","F5inM49m2DsUfcCDVwK6AalgE4eulBf5QLsFatk8vY4",[29],{"id":30,"title":31,"body":32,"category":123,"date":124,"description":125,"draft":126,"extension":21,"meta":127,"navigation":23,"path":128,"seo":129,"stem":130,"__hash__":131},"writing\u002Fhow-features-affect-workflows.md","Every new feature forces customers to reassess how they work with your product",{"type":16,"value":33,"toc":116},[34,38,41,46,49,52,55,58,61,65,68,71,74,77,80,84,87,90,93,96,100,103,106,110,113],[35,36,37],"p",{},"Every new feature is presented as additional value. But for an existing customer, it is also another change they have to understand, assess and fit into the way they already work. Since your customers have bought into your product, they are using it to fill a gap in their in-house capabilities. It could be a content management system, a digital asset manager, or a customer data platform. They become experts of your product and must keep up to date with the changes that come through. There could be a change to an existing feature or an entirely new facet of the product. A responsible customer will evaluate and consider how their existing operations are affected and how they can manage it going forwards. A considerate vendor should make the introduction of a new feature with as much thought and support to the customer as possible.",[35,39,40],{},"When a new feature goes live, it enters a system of existing features. How does this new feature fit? Does it overlap with another feature? Does it make an existing feature redundant? The vendor may help answer these concerns with documentation or a demonstration, though it still may not be clear how the customer will incorporate it into their processes. Your customers are experiencing your product as a whole and if your features don’t work together seamlessly, then you are leaving your customers to bridge the gaps for themselves. Let’s explore some of the challenges customers may face when dealing with a change in the product they are so heavily invested in.",[42,43,45],"h2",{"id":44},"a-new-feature-will-affect-other-parts-of-the-product","A new feature will affect other parts of the product",[35,47,48],{},"A new feature becomes part of an existing system. It does not operate independently from the capabilities that are already there, or at least that’s how your users will see it. Customers have already incorporated the product into their business processes. Data moves through it, workflows have been established, and they get used to the nuances of existing features.",[35,50,51],{},"Take a CMS that allows a content page to have English, Spanish and Italian language translations. Now imagine the vendor introduces a feature that allows each language to be published independently. This sounds like a very useful feature and you may have editors that are responsible for their own language translation. An editor responsible for a single language will want to publish immediately, they don’t want to wait around.",[35,53,54],{},"Have we considered its impact on adjacent features? How does this change governance? Should the language translation content move independently of the default language content? Have language fallbacks been considered? Can a language translation be published without the fallback language version being published itself? How can we audit different language versions of the same page?",[35,56,57],{},"A feature that initially appeared to affect only language publishing has now changed the assumptions of several neighbouring capabilities. The feature cannot therefore be evaluated only on whether independent language translation publishing works. Its impact on the surrounding product has to be considered as well.",[35,59,60],{},"If a relationship between one of those capabilities is not considered, the complexity may increase upon the new feature’s introduction. The customer is left on their own to understand the gaps, work around inconsistencies and connect parts of the product that should have worked together.",[42,62,64],{"id":63},"customers-follow-workflows-not-feature-boundaries","Customers follow workflows, not feature boundaries",[35,66,67],{},"Customers use a product to accomplish an outcome. Achieving that outcome requires several capabilities of the product working together.",[35,69,70],{},"Customers do not care who owns each capability, or where one feature technically ends and another begins. They expect the workflow to continue naturally. That workflow might involve publishing a campaign, launching a product, or simply translating a page.",[35,72,73],{},"Let’s again use a CMS product as an example. An editor is preparing for a campaign. They create the pages & blocks, localise it to different markets, get approval and set the publication schedule. Internally, these could be five separate features. But to the editor, it’s one continuous workflow with a singular goal.",[35,75,76],{},"One of our features, let’s say governance, only allows you to track approval on the whole page. This poses a problem if you have multiple languages that need separate approvals. The editor now has to manually track which translations are approved. These are all features of the product and if they are designed around their own boundaries, rather than common workflows. The customer is left to figure out how to work around the limitation to complete their work. They adapt their process to the software instead of the software supporting their process.",[35,78,79],{},"A feature boundary should not become a workflow boundary.",[42,81,83],{"id":82},"if-the-feature-does-not-connect-the-workflow-gaps-then-customers-are-forced-to-resolve-it","If the feature does not connect the workflow gaps, then customers are forced to resolve it.",[35,85,86],{},"Workflow gaps between related features will start to surface once customers get into the details of their work. Once they hit a limitation, they’ll experiment with the product to try and understand if it is a real gap or they are misunderstanding the functionality. In those instances where the gap is real, the customer will experiment with all the levers in an effort to complete the task.",[35,88,89],{},"A well thought out feature will consider how it fits with other neighbouring features. This will minimise the gaps. Whilst there will always be outliers and edge cases, it's impossible for vendors to foresee them all.",[35,91,92],{},"In the age of fast iteration and time to market, our customers are having to manage these changes on the product's timetable, not their own. Many vendors are releasing first versions of a feature with a promise to provide improved future iterations. They frame the release by saying that the feature will be shaped by customer feedback. Whilst the vendor is gathering feedback, the customer must tolerate and work around the gaps.",[35,94,95],{},"You are essentially forcing your customers to consider how this feature fits in with their business workflows. The customer may decide that further reviews are required before it is officially adopted. Customers may decide to never use the feature. However, what if the feature changes a core part of the product? Now the customer must immediately evaluate what processes need to change on their side. How can they minimise the effects of the change without disrupting the current workflow.",[42,97,99],{"id":98},"a-badly-implemented-feature-will-negatively-affect-the-customers-view-of-your-product","A badly implemented feature will negatively affect the customer’s view of your product",[35,101,102],{},"When it comes to a holistic view of your product, the last feature will negatively or positively change the customer's perception of it. It’s important to consider that a badly implemented feature can sour the view of the product in your customer’s mind. You may feel sceptical about that statement but consider this; If your latest feature promises an outcome, and fails to do this, your customer may lose confidence in your roadmap. A change in the product must consider its primary use case and ensure it fits in with its sibling features.",[35,104,105],{},"Looking at a feature on its own, it may deliver good value but that doesn’t necessarily mean it will complement the product. Over time the product could become fragmented as isolated features are added one after another. Customers do not experience individual features and treat them in isolation, they in fact consider the product as a sum of its features and experience as workflows intended to give them an outcome.",[42,107,109],{"id":108},"judge-the-impact","Judge the impact",[35,111,112],{},"Every new feature changes more than the capability it introduces. It changes the way customers use the product, the workflows around it and the relationship with the features that already exist. That means a feature should not only be judged by whether it works on its own. You also need to consider what it changes around it, which workflows it affects and what new work it creates for the customer.",[35,114,115],{},"If those relationships are not considered, the complexity does not disappear. The customer inherits it. Before you release your next feature, ask this question: Will this change the way our customers already work with the product?",{"title":6,"searchDepth":19,"depth":19,"links":117},[118,119,120,121,122],{"id":44,"depth":19,"text":45},{"id":63,"depth":19,"text":64},{"id":82,"depth":19,"text":83},{"id":98,"depth":19,"text":99},{"id":108,"depth":19,"text":109},"product","2026-10-25","Why every new product feature affects existing workflows, creates new dependencies, and can leave customers managing the gaps between capabilities.",false,{},"\u002Fhow-features-affect-workflows",{"title":31,"description":125},"how-features-affect-workflows","YkUsMUPeXoD9XdPyKH1fVzVDyMf8F4EgB4bWzfZh5O4",1792975881871]