The Output Trap (and How to Escape It)
Why Great Product Teams Measure Change, Not Just Completion
🏭 Scene from the Factory Floor
I once joined a team that could ship anything. Sprint boards were spotless. Roadmaps were tightly managed. Engineering velocity was through the roof.
But when I asked, “How do we know this is working?”—I got blank stares. No one could point to an actual improvement in the product, the business, or the customer experience.
We weren’t building value.
We were running a feature factory, stuck in what I now call the Output Trap.
⚠️ What Is the Output Trap?
The Output Trap is what happens when product teams mistake delivery for progress.
It looks like this:
Success = features launched
Roadmaps = commitments, not hypotheses
Metrics = ignored post-launch
Engineers = ticket-takers, not problem-solvers
You ship. You move on. You don’t learn.
And worst of all?
Nobody notices… because everyone’s “productive.”
Velocity becomes dangerous when it’s disconnected from direction.
🧠 Outputs vs. Outcomes: The Core Shift
Let’s break it down:
Shipping is not the finish line. Change is.
🌀 Introducing the Outcome Loop
To escape the Output Trap, high-performing teams adopt a new rhythm, a continuous feedback engine I call the Outcome Loop.
The Outcome Loop:
Identify a real user or business problem
Define the outcome you want to achieve
Design lightweight solutions and ship fast
Track behavior or business change
Refine, double down, or kill based on impact
Teams stuck in the Output Trap skip steps 1, 2, and 5.
That’s how you end up shipping features that don’t matter, fast.
📏 The Metrics That Actually Matter
Forget feature count. Start measuring:
1. Behavior Change
Did people do something different?
Feature adoption
Usage frequency
Retention lift
2. Business Impact
Did it move a key metric?
Conversion rate
Revenue per user
Operational efficiency
3. Customer Satisfaction
Did it solve a real problem?
NPS or CSAT
Support volume reduction
Qualitative feedback from interviews
If it didn’t change behavior, improve business performance, or make customers happier… was it worth building?
👀 You Might Be in the Output Trap If…
Here’s a quick gut check:
You define success by what ships, not what works
Your roadmap is a list of promises, not problems
You haven’t killed a feature in over a year
Engineers aren’t invited to discovery sessions
You ship and forget, no post-launch follow-up
Your dashboards don’t show user or business impact
If any of these feel familiar, you’re not alone. But you are stuck.
🧠 A Counterintuitive Truth
The best product teams often ship less, but learn more.
This is the paradox of outcomes:
To move faster, you have to slow down and ask better questions.
The fastest path to real progress isn’t throughput.
It’s clarity.
🧩 Executive Lens: Why the Trap Persists
If you're a product leader, the Output Trap may be hiding in your own systems.
Here’s how:
Your OKRs reward shipping, not learning
Your roadmap reviews focus on volume, not velocity toward a goal
Your team is organized around delivery, not outcomes
“Post-launch success tracking” isn’t a requirement, it’s an afterthought
Until outcomes are someone’s job, they’ll never be the team’s focus.
Want to build an outcome-driven culture?
Start by changing what you celebrate.
💡 A Quick Case Study
At one company, a checkout redesign shipped on time, looked great, and was a roadmap “win.”
But conversion dropped 11%.
Why? Too many steps. Unclear buttons. Edge cases ignored.
We shifted from launch-based metrics to a single outcome metric: checkout success rate. A cross-functional team owned it. Within 3 sprints, conversion was up 18%.
Same team. Same talent.
Different loop.
🎯 Final Thought: Product Is a Game of Change
If your team is busy but not better, ask:
What are we changing?
Who is owning the outcome?
How do we know it worked?
Because product isn’t about what we do.
It’s about what we cause.
Motion without progress is just output theater.
🎧 Want to Go Deeper?
This post is also available as a podcast episode on
🎙 The Product Leader’s Playbook – streaming everywhere:
🔹 YouTube | Amazon Music
💬 Your Turn
Have you ever worked in a Feature Factory?
How did you escape the Output Trap?
Drop your story in the comments; I’d love to hear it.