Feb 2025- Planning Around Outcomes: The Key to Innovation and customer focus.

By chaining ourselves to rigid plans, we risk bulldozing the path to true innovation and customer-centric solutions.

Many organisations focus on creating rigid plans to achieve certainty, yet ironically, this very behaviour stifles the creativity and adaptability teams need to solve complex problems effectively and be innovative. Features or functions are locked in months or even years ahead, with the expectation that their delivery alone will drive innovation—but real innovation comes from tackling problems in new and unexpected ways. But this approach misses the point. It’s not about the ‘what’—it’s about the ‘why.’

When the focus is on delivering specific features, creativity can take a back seat. The effort becomes about ticking off tasks, not solving real customer issues. This shifts thinking not about customer outcomes—but around outputs. And that’s where creativity stalls. Innovation doesn’t thrive in a box of features; it thrives when teams are free to figure out the best way to solve a problem, whatever that solution might be.

Planning around outcomes gives teams the flexibility to explore different paths. It aligns everyone with a shared goal, like improving user engagement or increasing customer satisfaction, without dictating how to get there. This shift allows for experimentation and learning, instead of being stuck on a rigid delivery plan. This is how we can step back and ask, “What’s the real problem we’re solving?” And once you’ve defined that, the solutions can become far more creative—and far more impactful.

Another benefit of focusing on outcomes is that it encourages cross-team collaboration. When everyone’s aligned around the same goal, diverse perspectives are brought together. Different teams may approach problems differently from each other—but if they’re all thinking about the same outcome, the differences create better, more comprehensive solutions. Less ‘us vs. them’ and more ‘how can we do this better together?’

So, what can we do to shift the focus from planning around features to planning around outcomes? It can start with a simple but powerful change in how we approach planning. First, redefine the problem—not the feature. Get clear on the outcome you want to achieve and ensure the whole team understands and shares that vision. Second, treat everything as an assumption to encourage a mindset of exploration, adaptability and questioning- seeking data and insights to validate (or invalidate) assumptions.  Encourage experimentation, instead of locking in a fixed set of features, create a space where different solutions can be tested and iterated upon. Finally, bring teams together. Break down silos and align everyone—whether product, technology, or customer service—around that shared outcome.

By shifting from rigid plans to outcome-driven thinking, teams can break free from constraints, spark real innovation, and deliver what truly matters—impactful solutions for customers