Other patterns

Flavor of the month life cycle

The feature life cycle of successful products is not the only pattern found by researchers. Kano suggested there was a second type, one that other researchers have dubbed the “flavor-of-the month”-lifecycle (Löfgren et al, 2011).

If you see a feature rising from Indifferent to One-Dimensional in a flash, chances are you’ve got yourself a flavour-of-the-month feature.

“For quality attributes [aka features] that follow this life cycle, the change from indifferent to one-dimensional happens quickly; the quality attribute becomes the selling point of the product soon after market introduction.” (Löfgren et al, 2011, my emphasis)

This is a nasty life cycle.

The feature that rises from Indifference to Perform can be mesmerizing. Its instant success makes you believe it has some kind of magical property. And when its success starts waning, you believe that magical property should just be rediscovered and all will be fine again. Everyone knows stories about product teams that clung to obsolete product features while everyone else knew these features were no longer relevant.

These types of features are particularly dangerous because they usually are a defining feature of the product. When such a feature moves back into oblivion, it can easily take the whole product with it.

Armed only with a Kano analysis, the best way to recognize flavour-of-the-month features is by their very definition and observed movement:

• They are a defining feature of your product, its selling point;

• They move from Indifferent to One-Dimensional or back.

Everyone recognizes a flavour-of-the-month feature when they see it, except when it’s their own. Whenever you suspect you might have a flavour-of-the-month feature on your hands, go out and talk to your customers. They’ll be able to tell you immediately.

When you have established that a feature is a flavour-of-the-month feature, make sure you’re not putting all of your eggs in that one basket. Open up efforts to develop new features that can bring more sustainable success to your product. Revisit the original latent requirement and find other solutions.

Let the flavour-of-the-month feature follow its prescribed path. Invest in it as long as you see results. When it starts crawling back to the Indifference category, let it go. Don’t believe too soon that its success is repeatable.

Actions to undertake for a feature with a flavour of the month life cycle

Feature Category	Competitive Advantage	Actions to undertake
Indifferent	Unknown	Promote usage
Perform	Feature performance (better, more, …)	Measure satisfaction of incremental changes and stop investing when return on satisfaction is too low
Indifferent	None	Remove feature

The stable life cycle

One other pattern recognised in research is the “stable life cycle”. Some features stay within the same category over time. The effort needed to stay competitive depends on the feature’s category:

Actions to undertake for features with a stable life cycle

Feature Category	Competitive advantage	Action to take for feature
Indifferent		Remove feature
Attract	Differentiation	Invest in achieving full satisfaction potential
Perform	Feature performance (better, more, …)	Measure satisfaction of incremental changes and stop investing when return on satisfaction is too low
Mandatory	None, except if competition does not have the feature	Invest only in feature maintenance

Watch out for the Reverse category

When users are dissatisfied by a feature’s presence and satisfied with its absence, that feature belongs to the Reverse category. It means users hate it.

Some car buyers today will turn up their noses at a car with a built-in navigation system. Instagram users posing under #nofilter banners went looking for other online communities. Customers will not pay a premium for something they don’t want.

When you see a feature creeping towards the Reverse category, start thinking about how you can turn it around. Take away the dissatisfaction caused by the feature’s presence. Make the car navigation optional again. Provide an option to hide filtering tools in the app’s UI.