{"id":77577,"date":"2022-01-27T12:30:45","date_gmt":"2022-01-27T12:30:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=77577"},"modified":"2026-01-07T15:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T15:52:08","slug":"hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/","title":{"rendered":"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\n
\n

A product person\u2019s job, at the end of the day, is to build the right product. Now, there\u2019s a lot that goes into that (as can be evidenced by the plethora of books<\/a>, articles, training materials, and more on the matter) but I\u2019m here to talk about something else. The flipside. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

What happens when you\u2019re building the wrong<\/em> things?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because this happens more often than we probably know or care to admit.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Why do we build the wrong things?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Sometimes it\u2019s because we\u2019ve misunderstood what the business needs, or what the customers were asking for. A lot of the time, it\u2019s a case of scope creep<\/a>\u2014all those little rabbit holes we convince ourselves that we need to build out into fully-fledged feature areas when something simple would have sufficed.\u00a0

And sometimes because we end up influenced\u2014or downright forced\u2014by the wrong stakeholders who just don\u2019t get what\u2019s at stake.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is at stake?<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\n

You might be filling your product with features that never get used.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s way too easy to say \u201cSure, we can add that while we\u2019re in there\u201d, and not realize the extra cognitive overload this gives your users in your app or that the new functionality will be used only by a tiny fraction of your user base in the long run. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s causing stressful crunch periods to get everything out.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

All these extra pieces add up and end up creating more effort to finish off than ever estimated, so it slows down the last 20% of the project work to a crawl. There\u2019s more to integrate, test, and document than you went in expecting. This has an effect on your team\u2019s mental health, too, if every release is heavier and harder than anticipated. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

A sea of missed milestones and eroded trust.<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

By not defending your product pipeline\u2019s \u2018Yes\u2019, you create knock-on effects across the business, making it harder and harder to deliver on anything with certainty. Others lose their faith in the product management process, and you then find it harder to get buy-in for your next big initiative for fear it becomes another time suck. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

The opportunity cost of building the right<\/em> thing!<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

If you\u2019re heading down the path of building a bunch of features that aren\u2019t going to have a huge impact, they are jostling for space in your product development pipeline with any experiments or initiatives that might actually make a difference. Your team only has so many resources and so much time, and for every lackluster piece of work completed, that\u2019s the time that could have been spent solving real, juicier problems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

How to stop building the wrong things<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

All of these unwanted paths of building the wrong thing can be summarized with two things. Fix these two things, and you\u2019ll never waste large amounts of precious time building the wrong thing again:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Problem<\/strong>: Incorrect assumptions about what\u2019s actually needed in the first place.
Solution<\/strong>: Better discovery and research practices, earlier in the process.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

We could go on about this topic for a long time as it\u2019s so fundamental to good product management practices<\/a>, but that\u2019s not what this article\u2019s about. Here are some of the best resources you\u2019ll find on discovery:

What is Continuous Product Discovery and are you Doing it right?<\/a>
\u201cContinuous Discovery Habits<\/a>\u2019 by Teresa Torres<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Problem<\/strong>: An inability to stop and iterate if on the wrong path.
Solution<\/strong>: Agile processes with short delivery cycles that create opportunities to iterate regularly.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n\n

Agile is nothing new either, but too often people follow the motions<\/em> of agile but don\u2019t take advantage of the best advantage it unlocks: the ability to take a breather between sprints or cycles to check that previous work has actually made an impact. If you\u2019re skipping this step, you just have a series of small, inefficient waterfalls, and aren\u2019t lean at all. The most impactful part of lean is enabled by agile in that it allows you to build, then measure and learn. Don\u2019t skimp on the measuring and learning, or else you\u2019re probably going to end up just building the wrong things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sunk-cost fallacy: your worst enemy<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

A special mention for one reason why product people around the world find themselves building the wrong thing. Sunk-cost fallacy.\u00a0

You\u2019re probably aware of sunk-cost fallacy. You\u2019ve also probably fallen prey to it more than a few times in your product management career.\u00a0

Psychologically, we attach such value to work that\u2019s already been done or is in progress, and it regularly blinds us to the harsh truth that sometimes the final product\u2014where this thing is headed\u2014isn\u2019t actually worth the journey after all. You\u2019re better off just leaving the half-finished work actually half-finished, and focusing your efforts on whatever truly is turning out to be valuable in your more refreshed research and discovery work.\u00a0

Doing so is nothing to be ashamed of. In fact, it\u2019s only when you step away, that you get a blast of fresh air and realize that you were burying yourself in these sunk costs<\/a>\u2014and that getting away is the real hero move! It takes guts to be that reactive and to iterate based on new information that\u2019s otherwise tough to swallow.

One of the best ways to determine if you\u2019re falling foul of sunk-cost fallacy? Pretend you’re an outsider, contracted to come in and look at your business and product with fresh eyes.\u00a0

Imagine you\u2019ve got no ties to the work that\u2019s been done, and no investment in the effort so far. Your job is just to point out what you think is the best route forward.\u00a0

Would you, hand on heart, still recommend the path you\u2019re on as the path forward? Or would you place more value on more up-to-date research which is leaning another way?\u00a0

If that research doesn\u2019t exist, but you\u2019ve got a niggly feeling that some outsider would question the effort you\u2019ve been putting in without sense-checking along the way, then NOW is a good time to run some extra discovery exercises to check you\u2019re on the right path.\u00a0

You might not like the answer, but good research and discovery techniques will rarely lead you astray, unlike your own internal biases.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

Conclusion:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

What do you think? Have you ever built the wrong thing into your product, only to find out too late that it was all for naught? Let us know what happened and how you dealt with it. We\u2019d love to hear about your experiences so we can help other product people avoid these pitfalls.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

\n
\"Measure<\/a><\/figure>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Why do we build the wrong things? Sometimes it\u2019s because we\u2019ve misunderstood what the business needs, or what the customers were asking for. A lot of the time, it\u2019s a…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"pp_uni_tag":[],"class_list":["post-77577","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-product-management-best-practice"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things | ProdPad<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"What happens when you build the wrong things? Sometimes it\u2019s because we\u2019ve misunderstood the business need or the customer need.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things | ProdPad\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A product person\u2019s job, at the end of the day, is to build the right product. Now, there\u2019s a lot that goes into that (as can be evidenced by the plethora\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"ProdPad\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ProdPad\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:author\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bastow\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2022-01-27T12:30:45+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2026-01-07T15:52:08+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/building-wrong-things.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2040\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1100\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Janna Bastow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@simplybastow\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@prodpad\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Janna Bastow\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things | ProdPad","description":"What happens when you build the wrong things? Sometimes it\u2019s because we\u2019ve misunderstood the business need or the customer need.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things | ProdPad","og_description":"A product person\u2019s job, at the end of the day, is to build the right product. Now, there\u2019s a lot that goes into that (as can be evidenced by the plethora","og_url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/","og_site_name":"ProdPad","article_publisher":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ProdPad\/","article_author":"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bastow","article_published_time":"2022-01-27T12:30:45+00:00","article_modified_time":"2026-01-07T15:52:08+00:00","og_image":[{"width":2040,"height":1100,"url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/building-wrong-things.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Janna Bastow","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_creator":"@simplybastow","twitter_site":"@prodpad","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Janna Bastow","Est. reading time":"6 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/"},"author":{"name":"Janna Bastow","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ceec8b615b0ad09e9199ba2fa8545e8c"},"headline":"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things","datePublished":"2022-01-27T12:30:45+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-07T15:52:08+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/"},"wordCount":1137,"commentCount":0,"publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#organization"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/dot-throwing-money-down-drain.png","articleSection":["Product Management Best Practice"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/","name":"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things | ProdPad","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/dot-throwing-money-down-drain.png","datePublished":"2022-01-27T12:30:45+00:00","dateModified":"2026-01-07T15:52:08+00:00","description":"What happens when you build the wrong things? Sometimes it\u2019s because we\u2019ve misunderstood the business need or the customer need.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/dot-throwing-money-down-drain.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/dot-throwing-money-down-drain.png","width":654,"height":654,"caption":"make sure you know how to price a product so you're not throwing your money away."},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/hidden-costs-of-building-the-wrong-things\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Latest Blogs","item":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/category\/latest-blogs\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Product Management Best Practice","item":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/category\/latest-blogs\/product-management-best-practice\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"name":"The Hidden Costs of Building the Wrong Things"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/","name":"ProdPad","description":"Product Management Software","publisher":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#organization"},"potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Organization","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#organization","name":"ProdPad","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blue-full.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/12\/blue-full.png","width":2050,"height":400,"caption":"ProdPad"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/logo\/image\/"},"sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/ProdPad\/","https:\/\/x.com\/prodpad","https:\/\/instagram.com\/prodpad","https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/company\/prodpad\/","https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCXHOx5Ed-6sHPujypIlhdMA"]},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/#\/schema\/person\/ceec8b615b0ad09e9199ba2fa8545e8c","name":"Janna Bastow","description":"Janna Bastow is co-founder of ProdPad, software that helps product managers plan and deliver better products. Janna also organizes ProductTank events around the world, including Mind The Product, a global community of product managers. She likes to inspire great product conversations by asking: \u201cWhat problem are you trying to solve?\u201d","sameAs":["https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/bastow","https:\/\/x.com\/simplybastow"],"url":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/author\/janna-bastow\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77577","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77577"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77577\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77577"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77577"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77577"},{"taxonomy":"pp_uni_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pp_uni_tag?post=77577"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}