Why business outcomes don’t equal team productivity

Or how to achieve successful outcomes without sacrificing innovation

If you work as a leader in product or technology field (C-Suite, Head of Product, Product and Tech lead), someone has probably already poked you with the “Outcomes vs. Outputs” shtick.

The concept itself? Simple and clear:

• Outputs are the things developers deliver: lines of code, features, bug fixes, “story points,” etc.

• Outcomes are the results those outputs achieve: X% conversion rate, Y% profit increase, or whichever OKRs came out of your 16th workshop this year.

Marty Cagan who popularised this concept argues that judging teams by outputs is bad—and he’s absolutely right. Measuring lines of code written, points or features shipped doesn’t tell you much about team’s success, value for the company or its “productivity”.

Instead, Cagan suggests evaluating teams by outcomes.

For example, a team could focus on increasing repeat purchases by X%. If they achieve it, that’s a sign of a productive team.

Sounds logical, right?
Not so fast.

Outcomes reflect strategy, not team productivity

The word “outcome” means you do something, and something “comes out.”

While what we do is within our control, what “comes out” of our actions not as much.

Outcomes are a super important thing to measure!

But judging people’s effort by business outcomes dilutes the clarity needed to evaluate your strategy. It creates unnecessary, often damaging pressure on your team to deliver results sometimes beyond their control.

Hear me out… Imagine you’re a fisherman testing a new lake. You pick a spot, time of day, cast your net, and hope for fish.

If you don’t catch any fish, what do you do? You try another spot, another time, or a different net. → You adjust your strategy.

How much fish you catch depends more on where and when you choose to fish, not just how well you throw the net.

Product success works the same way.

Market conditions, your strategy, product fit, brand trust, pure luck, other departments all play a role in your outcomes — well before your team’s efforts come into play.

Your team may execute flawlessly, but if the strategy fails, or the market isn’t ready, outcomes will still lack.

→ Does that mean your team wasn’t productive?

You may have a solid strategy and a team of drunk teenagers but external factors like COVID-3000 or a competitor going bankrupt lead to sky-high outcomes.

→ Does that mean your team was productive?

Even when outcomes succeed, how do you know success is due to the team and not an individual, market conditions, luck, or company-wide activities?

Without rigorous statistical analysis and massive amounts of data, you can’t.

You might argue: “Consistent inability to move the needle reflects inefficiency of the team.”

And you’d be somewhat correct - but this will only ever become apparent in a long enough timeline, which robs you of the ability to optimise quickly.

Outcomes = Productivity = Risky assumptions

By tying outcomes to team productivity evaluation, you are inherently making these risky assumptions:

• Your market and audience are fully understood.

• Your strategy and business model are foolproof.

• Your product already has excellent market fit.

• Your team is perfectly staffed and resourced.

These assumptions rarely hold true, except maybe for some teams working on mature, successful, well granulated and well established products.

In all other cases of evolving products or companies the practice will likely hurt your outcomes more than it helps you achieve them.

It will…

1. Encourage Gaming the System (ironically like outputs do): Teams cherry-pick easy outcomes, design dark patterns, or focus on one metric at the expense of others.

2. Stifle Innovation: Fear of failure discourages experimentation and strategic risk-taking.

3. Dilute Strategic Insight: Outcomes lose their value for validating strategy when teams manipulate them for success.

4. Lack an Actionable Metrics: It can take months to see consistent results, leaving leaders with no clear way to proactively improve team productivity.

Success is two fold:
optimised product strategy
& a motivated team

If your chosen strategy to “catch the fish” isn’t working, the only thing that will keep you going until you find the right approach is the strength and quality of your motivation.

The same goes for your team.

Product Success comes from optimising for two things separately:

—> Product success: Are we measuring and doing the right things?
—> Team motivation: Are we operating at our full capacity?

Productivity is an emergent property of motivation.

Productivity is what you get (an outcome if you will) when people have purpose, agency, and a mandate to act.

Great outcomes don’t equal productivity - but achieving them motivates teams.

Success and motivation create a self-reinforcing loop, just as failure and apathy do.

Use outcomes to direct, focus, inspire and celebrate your teams - not to judge their individual contributions.

Well-chosen and tracked product outcomes are critical to your strategy’s success—but how you frame and communicate them matters even more.

Telling your team, “If we figure out the right path → your work can make $10 million in revenue,” is an incredible motivator. This frames the outcome as a shared opportunity and highlights the team’s critical role in achieving success.

On the other hand, saying, “Achieve $10 million in revenue this quarter (to prove your team’s value)” - is the fastest way to kill creativity and drive.

By communicating outcomes in a way that invites collaboration, you encourage your team to test ideas, contribute to strategy, and take ownership of their work.

When outcomes succeed, celebrate them as a reflection of the team’s efforts. Recognising their contributions reinforces purpose, builds motivation, and inspires your team to tackle future challenges.

Decoupling outcomes from performance evaluations creates a safe environment where teams can identify and address strategic flaws without fear of blame. This builds trust, fosters creativity, and allows teams to focus on solving the right problems rather than worrying about looking “productive”.

This isn’t about excusing poor execution — it’s about ensuring teams have the clarity and mandate to focus on what they can control.

If we want “inspired” product teams, we need to inspire them.

Use the outcomes to optimise the strategy and choices you make and nurture your team’s motivation at the same time.

When strategy and motivation align, business outcomes will follow consistently.

If you are curious about how might one optimise a team for motivation, I wrote about that here.