# Avoid the Focusing illusion: Customer Problems Stack Rank - Especially in B2B product management - [Shreyas Doshi sur Twitter : "Hardly any customer adopts it https://t.co/78aC5l9CBP" / Twitter](https://twitter.com/shreyas/status/1376033615029538828) - When you talk to a customer about a specific problem, they will naturally “focus” on that problem, at the exclusion of other problems they (or their business overall) is facing. - With this focus comes a disproportionate emphasis on solving THAT specific problem. - A good solution here: - Customer Problems Stack Rank (CPSR) - Ask the customer to stack rank the problem vs. the other problems they are trying to solve for their business & org. - Also get the CPSR from other personas involved: VP Support, VP Mktg... - You are now closer to truth. # How to break out of the Product Death Cycle - [This is the Product Death Cycle. Why it happens, and how to break out of it at andrewchen](https://andrewchen.com/this-is-the-product-death-cycle-why-it-happens-and-how-to-break-out-of-it/) - The Product Death Cycle is tricky because it’s driven by the right intentions: Listen to customers and build what they want. - Instead, ask “why?” over and over, to understand the root cause for lack of growth. - The response to these root causes should consist of a large toolkit of responses- maybe marketing: Pricing, positioning, distribution, PR, content marketing, etc. Maybe it has to do with the strategy: Going high-end instead of low-end. Building a utilitarian product instead of a network-based one, or vice versa. - The point is, the solution should be tailored to the root cause, rather than to be explicitly driven by the desire of every product team to build more product.