A great tool for discovering opportunities to remove features is the Eliminate-Reduce-Raise-Create grid. The grid, which forms part of the Blue Ocean Strategy, encourages you to identify the key features that are used to compete in the marketplace, be it by your own product or the competitors. You then determine which of those features your product can eliminate and which it should provide to a lesser extend or in an inferior way. But that’s not all. The grid also encourages you to identify new and improved features that set your product apart. This leads to a matrix with four quadrants that give the grid its name: Eliminate, Reduce, Raise, and Create.
Let’s take a look at an example and apply the grid to the first iPhone, which was launched in 2007.
As the picture above shows, the first iPhone eliminated a number of smartphone features that were considered a standard or must-have back in 2007. These included different models to choose from, a physical keyboard and a stylus to write on the screen. Additionally, it reduced a number of features such as the voice and the camera quality and the email integration (no POP and no Exchange support), which its competitors excelled in.
But the iPhone also provided enhanced and genuinely new features as shown in the “Raise” and “Create” quadrants above. These include mobile Internet in form of the Safari browser, integrating the iPod with a mobile phone, a brand-new eye-catching design, and a revolutionary touch screen. Removing and weakening features helped Apple reduce time-to-market, resulted in an uncluttered, easy to use product, and made the product stand out.
Before you decide which features you are going to remove or reduce, ensure that you have a solid understanding of your target group and the problem your product solves or the benefit it provides. You will also benefit from a good portion of courage. It’s always easier to create a me-too product than to do something different. But “innovation is not about saying yes to everything. It’s about saying no to all but the most crucial features,” as Steve Jobs once said.
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I take things a step further and apply the grid to the problems the product should solve. Solving a non-cohesive set of problems is almost as bad as including too many features.
All decisions to include features or solve problems should be viewed through the lens of a single, overarching value proposition.
Thanks for your comment, Roger. I fully agree that selecting and prioritising the problems a product should address or the benefits it should provide is crucial. I find it helpful to distinguish between the primary problem and secondary ones, as suggested by Clayton Christensen in his jobs-to-be-done theory.