Outcomes over Outputs is the wrong message to send to your team
In a previous role, I was told in a very high tone: "Robert, we need to focus on outcomes and not outputs". - fair enough I said to myself... uh, but how exactly?
Ohh I know, I just need to write one of those OKR things, and poof solved.
So we get back to work and with the new focus on "Outcomes over Outputs" the product or service... still isn't performing as expected.
Now the [insert CXO, VP of something] is not happy...
So what gives?
Well, Outcomes and Outputs don't live separately, they are dependent on each other.
There is nothing wrong with features being built into a product.
What does not work is building the wrong features.
The piece that had been missing for me for so long was a logic model to tie it all together (as our hypothesis and as our evaluation tool)
In other words, how do I have a systematic way to design, so that I can go from my customer's challenge all the way to the impact and retrace all the steps we did?
That would look a bit like this in a simplified way: (here is a behavior design logic model I use)
What happens
>We have this Challenge
What I do
>I delivered this feature
>I used this behavior change strategy
>I used this Intervention strategy
>I addressed these barriers (COM-B)
>I focused on this Behavior(s) (in context including who, when, where)
What I get
>I focused on this Outcome (s)
>I focused on creating this Impact
To this, you can of course add more layers, such as assumptions, resources, and measures.
Try this today with your team or yourself:
Explain to each other how exactly you tied your challenges to outcomes (and ultimately an impact)
And maybe, just maybe we can go away from the framing of "outputs over outcomes" and into one of logic and systematic design over other processes.
Curious to know your thoughts.
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