The product department is responsible for figuring out what the right product to build is – identifying the hardest problems people face, and solving them at scale.

Inducing change

Solving a problem at scale requires changing people’s behavior, which is incredibly hard. The default approach to changing behavior is pushing, but it rarely works.

People push back against changes because of:

1. Ease. It’s easier to rely on a solution you are used to.
2. Attachment. They have invested time in the current solution, so the sunk cost fallacy plays against change.
3. Risk. What if the new approach doesn’t work? They will have wasted time.

MUI's biggest competitor is not a competitor, it’s inertia. Is it worth making a change?

Selling the change

A common failure in selling the change is to put too much emphasis on the product. But people don’t adopt a product; they adopt a solution to a problem. They have a particular need that they need to fulfill. So never lose sight of what the problem is. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5cZybM2iP4 as an illustration. It isn’t until you really understand the problem that you can begin to prescribe a solution.

Tips to ease change

To drive product adoption, you first have to identify what the barriers to change are and figure out how to remove them.

• Draw attention to the problem and cost of inaction, to overcome ease (1. above). It’s common for people to be blind to the problem they have. You have to highlight that doing nothing is more expensive than making a change. For example, for developers to upgrade to a new major version, they need to see how much better the new version is than the current version.
• Provide small steps to reduce the perceived risk (3. above). For example, a progressive migration between major versions, or incremental adoption of a new technology.
• Design solutions considering the go-to market. This is critical because a solution used by nobody is useless.

An extract from: https://review.firstround.com/pull-dont-push-how-catalysts-overcome-barriers-and-drive-product-adoption, is a must-read.

Tips to identify where people would be happy to change

The product zeitgeist fit: https://a16z.com/2019/12/09/product-zeitgeist-fit/: [We look at the following attributes to figure out if a low-end disruption has anything close to potential product-market resonance. This list is an adaptation of the Product Zeitgeist Fit.](https://mui-org.notion.site/We-look-at-the-following-attributes-to-figure-out-if-a-low-end-disruption-has-anything-close-to-pote-4066fd293b2d4c3fb1dcb279f956490e).

Ecosystem