What manhole cover design can teach us about product development
How to balance standard and custom features for software products
At first glance, both topics seem unrelated. But manhole cover design illustrates some important points for product development, both for startups and large multi-national organisations.
Let’s look at some common challenges that startups and large organisations face.
The challenge for startups
Startups with a B2B aspect in their business model can sometimes be overwhelmed by individual feature requests from business customers. They have found a need — as the lean startup methodology tells them — and now they plunge into building it. But the next customer has another request, and yet another customer has yet another feature request.
This can lead startups astray from building a product towards building custom software solutions. Or, their product turns into a complex Frankenstein with 5 heads, 10 arms, 7 feet… lot’s of things stitched together.
How can startups listen to customers, while keeping a strong product focus?
The challenge for large organisations
Large multi-national organisations face a similar, but different challenge. They often find themselves in the situation where their colleagues in other regions have developed their own local solutions. This leads to many different systems being run, maintained and evolved. In turn, this creates a complex software systems landscape, and high overall costs.
At some point, organisations realise the inefficiency of this. They become aware of complexity that arises when central systems need to interact with the variety of different regional systems.
Then, an initiative is started to consolidate things into one single source of truth. They aim to create a standardised process within one central system that serves all the different regions.
This is the time when organisations encounter resistance from the different regions, who emphasise that their local needs are different and cannot be served by one central system.
But…
Even though there are regional variations and varying stakeholder needs, that should to be considered, there are also many common aspects among them.
This is where we can learn from manhole cover design. (1)
Common aspects
Most manhole covers have the shape of a circle. This isn’t an accident. The round shape has many benefits:
- They cannot fall into the manhole, whereas square and oval ones can be flipped sideways and fall into it.
- They resist soil pressure evenly.
- They are easier to manufacture.
- The heavy round covers can be rolled on their side (to easily move them around).
This shows that standardisation is important, so that all users can take advantage of the benefits.
Variation
A local variation in the function of manhole covers are required for areas that are prone to flooding. Here, manhole covers may have special hinged lids that flip over to one side when pushed by water, and flop back when the pressure subsides.
This is an important local variation. It prevents catastrophic lid launches that pose hazards to the immediate surroundings, and avoids empty holes in the street that may be deadly for passersby.
So this is not a weird edge case we can ignore. But at the same time, we do not need to install manhole covers designed for flooding in areas where floods don’t occur.
Another variation is the aesthetic. While some places have less striking graphic design, some have turned manhole cover design into an artform. These designs show drawings with regional significance, of cityscapes, local maps, nature, folklore or contemporary culture. Fun fact: In Japan you can find Hello Kittie manhole covers.
Beyond the aesthetic variation, these designs have captured the imagination of the public. In Berlin an artist rolled paint onto the profile of the manhole cover to print t-shirts. While in Japan it created a treasure hunting culture among adults, who search for the over 200 designs and take pictures of the covers they visit. The different designs also created hope among some japanese locals, who anticipate that the elaborate designs will increase tourism to their city. For the sewage industry in Japan it has helped them improve their image from “dirty and smelly” to “colourful and elaborately designed”. (2)
The takeaways from this story is that common design aspects and local variations are both important. We sometimes fall into the either-or-trap. It can be hard to find the middle way. But it is important that we do, so that we can ensure the success of our product or service.
The risk of over-standardisation is that we do not meet the needs of customers, which results in them rejecting our product.
The risk of over-customisation is that we end up building custom software. This makes growth and scaling slow, and creates a complex systems architecture with high maintenance effort.
Not all variations need to result in separate features. There are some variations we need to be aware of, so that our common solution can handle all of them. Like the simple example of conventions for last names which vary between countries. If we are not aware of them and have a maximum character restriction on the form field, a Spanish customer may not be able to enter their full last name. (In Spain the last name last names are much longer, because they combine the mother’s and father’s last name.)
Other variations may require a separate feature. For example: Tax rules will vary from country to country, when buying a car. Some markets have very complex taxes rules: such as Portugal where a luxury tax applies.
Finally…
When we are overwhelmed with individual feature requests from Business customers…
We need to start by looking at the common needs. This will help to reduce complexity. Then, we can shift focus to understand what varies.
Some of the methods that help us understand and prioritise needs are Jobs to be Done or the Kano Model.
Why do I share this random story about manhole cover design?
Because stories are important when we want to persuade our colleagues and take our stakeholders on a journey. By sharing related examples, it makes our point stronger and shows that it is not just our opinion, but that it is something that is tried and tested in other fields.
What about you?
How do you find the balance for standard and custom features in your software products?
What weird or random stories do you know that relate to product development in unexpected ways?
Sources
(1) Source for the information on manhole cover design: The wonderful book “The 99% invisible city: A field guide to the hidden world of everyday design” by Roman Mars and Kurt Kohlstedt
(2)Article: “Japan sewers clean up their act with manhole art”
