Outcome Laddering: Focus your product, rally your team, unlock your influence

Nobody cares about your product. What they care about is the outcome it enables: what your product enables them to do. For customers, it means the difference it makes in their life. For the business, it means smart investments that create durable differentiated advantages. And getting the right focus on the right outcomes is what makes the difference between a good product and a bad one.

Maybe you've experienced product roadmaps that chase the latest shiny idea with questionable value, or the 'MVP' that clearly isn't good enough quality to ship (but somehow ships anyway), or the great ideas that die in a forgotten strategy deck. Or maybe you've loved a product with an incredible core experience that steadily built customer loyalty, business success, and industry leadership. It's not random, and clear, compelling outcomes as the foundation of cross-functional product work are the key to getting it right. In this presentation, you'll learn a simple method to map out what your product should be, what it should do, and what's most important to build next.

This framework has been adopted by product builders at leading companies and taught in a graduate-level course at the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA), and regardless of your role, you'll be better equipped to contribute to the decisions to make your next great product.

About our presenter

Peter Lewis is a Principal Product Designer at Cigna, where he designs digital experiences powered by emerging technologies to help people better understand and manage their health. Over 20+ years as a designer, Peter has played a wide variety of roles at companies like Capital One, Ignite, and Booz Allen, including designing end-to-end product experiences for millions of users, defining foundational insights from qualitative research and synthesis, teaching product strategy and creative collaboration practices, creating an award-winning short film, and co-founding a human-centered design and innovation consultancy with a select team trained by Frog Design and the Austin Center for Design (AC4D). To all his work, he brings a neighborly commitment to customer wellbeing, a love for beautiful details grounded in strategic depth, and a passion for untapped potential.

On the personal side, Peter lives near Washington, DC with his family of 5 (and mini poodle), and plays whatever instruments he can get his hands on.