How do you know when you’ve delivered enough Product Value?

Current Value is important because it provides people with a way to express and understand what a product does for its users today. It is not, by itself, a measure of customer satisfaction because it does not take into account the expectations of the user.  Therefore, a product can deliver significant Current Value and yet still leave users unsatisfied. This information is especially important in managing the life cycle of a product.

To illustrate, consider an Electric Vehicle (EV) that has an effective range of 100 miles (161 km) on a full charge. If the EV’s driver only makes short trips, they may be completely satisfied, but if they want to take longer trips of several hundred miles or kilometers, they will not be satisfied. The difference between the current range of the EV and the desired range of its driver can be expressed in terms of Unrealized Value.

Unrealized Value, also referred to as a satisfaction gap, is the difference between a person’s current experience or level of satisfaction, and their desired experience or level of satisfaction. Groups of customers with similar desired outcomes can be considered together for planning and analysis purposes.

Unrealized Value is useful because it helps an organization understand where it may find new opportunities to deliver value. It is also useful in product portfolio management as a way to compare different opportunities.