Welcome to the feature factory

Your team shipped 47 features last quarter. Revenue is flat. Users are confused. Support tickets are up.

Welcome to the feature factory.

Here’s the pattern:

• Stakeholder requests feature
• Team builds it
• Feature ships
• Another request arrives

Everyone’s busy.
Nothing improves.

The problem: You’re optimizing for output, not outcomes.

Output = features shipped
Outcomes = problems solved

Feature factories measure:

• Sprint velocity
• Story points completed
• Release frequency
• Backlog burndown

But they don’t measure:

• Did this reduce user friction?
• Did this enable new revenue?
• Did this solve the coordination problem?
• Did this compound or create value?

Real example:
I watched a team ship 12 “high-priority” features in one quarter. Six months later, 8 were barely used, 3 added confusion, and 1 actually moved metrics.

That’s not execution failure. It’s system failure.

The fix: Shift from “what should we build?” to “what problem are we solving?”

Instead of feature roadmaps, build outcome roadmaps:

• Reduce onboarding time by 50%
• Enable self-service for 80% of support requests
• Increase contract renewal rate by 15%

Then build the minimum features needed to achieve those outcomes.

Feature factories feel productive, but productivity without direction is just expensive motion.

The question isn’t “how fast can we ship?” It’s “are we solving the right problems?”

Is your team measuring outputs or outcomes?