Five Guidelines to Delivering Products that Create Impact in Communications, Media and Technology

Outcome Engineering 101
Five Guidelines to Delivering Products
that Create Impact in Communications, Media
and Technology
At the apex of innovation — with an emphasis on business outcomes and
meaningful growth — exists not just one north-star discipline, but two:
design and engineering. Long considered fundamentally separate entities,
engineering and design have long led project plans and new ideas toward
product development in their own streams; each approach with its many
advocates. It’s time to shift to an evolved, technology-empowered design
mindset. As technology informs design, and good design arms technology
to become most effective by engaging with users, the two now sit at the top
of the product development pyramid to co-create success. Here we offer
five guidelines for delivering outcome-oriented products, illustrated with
real-wor􏰓d examples.
January 2020

At the highest level, “outcomes” are how success
in digital engineering gets measured. Of course,
the word “outcomes” is a bit abstract outcomes
can take on many forms. Did we improve upon user
engagement? Did we produce new, sustainable
revenue growth through that engagement? Are
we iterating on our delivery model and becoming
quicker to market? Are we continuously improving
our digital capabilities?
Tangible business outcomes, regardless of form, are
the goal of all product engineering initiatives. The
realization of those target outcomes – or failure to
meet them – drives a business’s sustainability as an
innovation leader. Not hitting targets? Competitors
are ready to take the lead.
Today’s reality is that technology is always evolving.
Despite growing investments in personalization
technologies, such as artificial intelligence (AI),
machine learning and robotic process automation
(RPA), the vast majority of consumers still report
underwhelming digital experiences.¹ And yet 81%
of market leaders in a Gartner survey expect their
customer experience (CX) to impart a competitive
edge in 2019.�
Why the disconnect? With deep experience in
global digital engineering, we’ve identified a set
of practices shared by successful innovators. The
common thread is that, unlike most others in their
space, top performing companies aren’t design
or engineering-first when it comes to solutioning.
They’re both, equally.
When results don’t align with initiative – often
driven by starting with design and engineering
unaligned – businesses end up with the lackluster
customer response referenced above.
The goal is positive outcomes, and the approach
is what we call Outcome Engineering. Successful
innovators approach new opportunities by bringing
technologists to the table alongside design
leadership. Researched, informed empathy for
the user experience is matched with informed
technical perspective. Cross-functional leaders
collaborate to understand the need, identify how
experience can be improved through cutting-edge
technology, and elevate the discussion through
design-led creativity, data improvement and
experience optimization.
Think of empathy as a deep understanding of
what customers or employees feel and hope to
accomplish during each step of their journey,
whether they are buying an ad, reading an e-book,
or ordering a home medical device.
In outcome engineering, technologists engage with
designers to co-create solutions that match end-
user needs. This requires significant technology-
informed empathy – a new kind of design thinking
– where clearly defined outcomes are the goal. This
collaborative approach is the starting point.
Companies that master the outcome engineering
approach lessen the risk of innovation by building
solutions with the most outcome-oriented
technology available empowered by the right
technology-informed design intuition and
validating ideas with users before making major
technology investments. What’s more, they don’t
reject ideas for improving the customer journey
solely because they require new infrastructure or
processes. On the contrary, these companies will
readily explore new technologies if the business
case demonstrates a return on investment.
This white paper, intended for executives in
the communications, media and technology
industry executives, presents five guidelines to
help introduce outcome engineering into their
organizations – even those that are historically slow
to change.
Executive Summary
5 Guidelines to Delivering Products that Create Impact in Communications, Media and Technology 2

Outcome Engineering
A creative process for digital engineering problem-solving
that marries technological perspective and design thinking
methodologies, orienting product development to ensure
desired business outcomes.
Bringing together two very different teams to work
cohesively together when historically they’ve been
trained to work separately can be fraught with
challenges - namely in the form of egos. It’s time
to shift away from the mindset that designers and
engineers are brought in “when the time is right.”
Engineers have deep technical knowledge - often
expressed in a language unknown to others. They
not only know the technical implications of an
idea, but they also carry the weight of delivery.
Conversely, designers understand human behavior
and typically have good instincts for right and
wrong approaches for the user experience. Their
work is the face of invention, and doing a good job
often defines whether projects fail or succeed.
For both teams, their worldview can be shaped
by their well-informed perspective being often
challenged by others with far less experience. “Can
we get this to pop more?” “Can we quickly add AI to
this third-party integration?”
The reality of perfect, modern product engineering
is that neither design nor engineering supersede
the other. Engineering enables design, and design
enables engineering.
Data challenges design intuition, and design
humanizes data-driven experiences. Both go hand
in hand. Technology makes the design process
more efficient by creating the toolset, the ability to
reach the end user more effectively, the ability to
collect, mine, extrapolate and learn from the data
good design empowers.
If you’re after a successful business outcome with
a hunger for innovation, designer and engineers
must work together - from the very first ideation
meeting helping to conceive the product, discuss
the users and their needs, and explore options. It’s
collaborative, and led by neither. By bringing these
skills to the table at the same time, the conversation
and outcome on both sides is dramatically elevated.
Guideline 1
Reframe the entrypoint of
designers and engineers

User empathy is a deep understanding of users’
motivations, processes and frustrations at every
step of their journey. Maybe customers are
anxious about selecting the wrong product. (A
recommendations engine might be in order.)
Maybe customers who need help with product
setup are irritated about having to wait for a human
agent, but they’re distrustful of FAQs. (Consider
a chatbot.)
How can you acquire empathy? It starts by listening.
In a recent study by CB Insights, senior executives
in large companies reported that the top source
of successful innovations was customer input, far
ahead of competitive intelligence, analyst reports
and other sources.³
This is not to say that industry leaders wait for input
from customers – they ask for it.
They should ask:
❙ What steps do customers take to meet their
goals? (Order a product, buy an ad, set up a new
router, etc.)
❙ How do they feel at each step? What is their
ideal experience? How much closer do they
get to their goal?
❙ How can technology make each step or all
steps of the experience faster, simpler or
more rewarding?
❙ How can technology arm us to continue
learning how our users engage with
our journey?
Guideline 2
Make innovation practical
through empathy
Cable TV company profitably enters SMB ad market with self-service platform
Challenge:A leading national cable company sought to increase revenue and market share
by targeting new small and medium business (SMB) market segments. Until then, the
company had sold cable TV ad space almost exclusively to large businesses and enterprises
Quick Take

through a direct sales force. To profitably sell air time at a price point SMBs could justify, the
company needed a self-service platform that automated everything possible.
Studying the customer journey
We and our partner ReD Associates conducted a seven-week discovery to understand how
SMBs promote their business, how they perceive their customers, how they purchase ads
and what kind of offering would entice them to switch to a new format. We dispatched cross-
functional teams to visit customer locations over several days:
❙ Ethnographers observed real-world ad-buying processes (e.g., on Facebook and
Google) and conducted interviews.
❙ Analysts examined the business case and change management requirements (e.g., call
center routing and sales training).
❙ Architects investigated how to build a new cloud platform and integrate it with
approximately 20 legacy production systems.
❙ Team members shared findings and collaborated closely throughout the
discovery process.
Outcome engineering
The field study revealed that SMBs mistakenly believed they could not reach their
customers through cable TV ads, could only purchase ads for a national audience, and that
creating a video ad would require hiring an agency and cost thousands of dollars.
We designed the self-service platform to overcome these issues. With a few clicks, SMBs
can create a targeted campaign based on their customers’ interests, demographics and
precise location, including individual zip codes. Ad buyers can also select precise timing
options—for example, airing commercials to different audiences depending on time of year.
Thanks to automation, 30 commercials cost just a few hundred dollars – payable by credit
card. Detailed reports show impressions (website visits) resulting from commercials.
Based on our recommendation, the client also launched a service to shoot personalized
commercials in a matter of days, for as little as a few hundred dollars.
The entire project, from contract to launch, took just four months, and the self-service
platform launched in April 2019. On day one, SMBs began uploading commercials to air on
cable TV and paying by credit card. Ad sales rose from just over $4 million in the first quarter
of FY19 to $5.5 million in the first quarter of FY20 – a 38% gain.
What’s more, our client can now quickly adapt the self-service platform as customer ad-
buying habits change. After adopting the architecture and processes we recommended,
Agile teams increased the number of stories per sprint from 28 to 36 – achieving
28% faster velocity.

The goal is not always to invent the iPad,
e-commerce or the ATM. (But kudos if you do!)
Rather, the goal is to improve consistently by
examining each stage in the customer journey to
find incremental opportunities for improvement.
Aim to stay ahead of the curve and keep designers
and engineers actively looking for and empowered
to make product improvements.
Tom Kelley, widely regarded as the father of design
thinking, suggests closely scrutinizing every step of
a customer’s experience. “What patterns emerge?”
he asks. “Anything surprising or strange? Question
why certain steps occur, the order they occur in
and so forth. Ask yourself how you might innovate
each step.” 4
Your team needs a clearly defined process to:
❙ Identify new opportunities based on shifting
customer demands or new technology
availability -- even at small scale.
❙ Prototype and validate ideas quickly.
❙ Partner with technology partners to speed
delivery across projects.
❙ Roadmap future innovation opportunities that
set your company’s growth foundation.
Customers might want recommendations for the
right product model, to identify Wi-Fi dead spots
in their homes without having to schedule a service
appointment, or just an Android app or better
chatbot. A small change in the journey can create
an outsized change in the experience.
For more on this topic, see our white paper, “Seven
Ways Traditional Companies Can Succeed with
Disruptive Innovation.”
“A small change in the journey can create
an out-sized change in the experience.”
- Tom Kelley
Guideline 3
Iterate regularly, with big
impact, through small
improvements

Resistance to change is the norm in many large
organizations. It’s a natural response to memories of
blown budgets, abandoned projects and diverted
resources. But what if you built, always, with
confidence that clear business objectives would
be met?
Similar to the build-measure-learn (BML) feedback
loop in Lean methodology, a prototyping design sprint
is a phased framework – empathy, idea, prototype,
user testing and learning. Team members from
different disciplines come together in a pod to work
collaboratively.
The goal of the design sprint is to rapidly test concepts,
bypassing internal roadblocks to identify innovations
that customers actually want. Initial, high-level goals
are set (more purchases per visit, faster time through
the process, etc.) and real user testing validates
the plan.
Design sprints in outcome engineering ignite a culture
of innovation, even in traditionally slow-to-change
organizations. Leaders are generally more receptive
to new ideas without relinquishing their financial
oversight because technology investments don’t
happen until user testing demonstrates that the idea
has traction.
When introducing design sprints, keep these goals
top of mind:
❙ It’s not about testing a complete product.
Design sprints are done with prototypes –
oftentimes without code – to validate a concept.
There are many approaches here but mimicking
and testing the ideal end user experience is the
only requirement.
❙ Refine the original product idea. User testing
often sparks ideas for features not in the original
plan and nixes planned features that don’t inspire
users. Either way, the product introduced is better
than the plan.
❙ Accurately assess infrastructure requirements.
Design sprints reveal whether the new idea can be
introduced on existing infrastructure or requires
new technology.
❙ Accelerate time to market. Prototyping and user
testing happen in days, not months, providing the
data the team needs to decide whether to pivot
or persevere. In summary, design sprints are cost
effective. They fail fast. And they produce products
that customers have verified that they want.
Guideline 4
Set target outcome to validate
with prototyping

There’s a saying, “One team, one dream” - meant
toinspire team members to work together to
achieve one goal. While it boasts great positivity,
it can lack in motivation - the underlying “why” for
your team’s obsession with outcomes. Motivation
by definition is what causes a person to change
their behavior. In our case, this change in behavior
isn’t necessarily a correction, but a push to strive
for the best performance possible. Words are
great, but tangible, real impact on one’s personal or
professional life is better.
By gamifying our approach, outcome engineering
teams - including trusted partners - have access to
incentives to make an impact along the way, giving
them an opportunity to visualize what’s exactly
“in it for them.” Teams can see the better/faster/
smarter way the goal is achieved, the bigger impact
meeting the goal will not only have on projects, but
on personal achievement.
Tying in access to rewards - whether that be
external recognition, financial compensation or
forward trajectory on a career path - allows the team
to truly understand that every change, big or small,
is recognized and made visible. When the impact
comes, real trophies of achievement (incentives)
come as well.
The same incentives need to be directed towards
partners as well - after all, they are the ones trusted
to be an integral part of the execution strategy. By
incentivizing a healthy, leveled relationship where
value is assessed constantly and upside is shared,
companies are likely to find a partner
that is fully vested in generating real outcomes.
Gamifying is twofold: it creates a culture within the
company that is not only one of a growth mindset
and fun, but it motivates team members to excel,
highlighting the importance and subsequent
rewards of making a bigger impact. It’s a motivation
engine for producing amazing results.
Guideline 5
Combine the outcome with
rewards through gamification

“We can only build products that our current
infrastructure supports.”
“We don’t build for Android.”
“Our architecture is too complex to integrate
with a public cloud.”
Stances like these reflect good intentions –
generally to keep costs down and mitigate risk. But
followed rigidly, they wall off companies from new
business models and revenue streams.
By starting all conversations with engineering and
design equally represented, product ideas are
laid out with technology in mind - but not limited
by it either. Engineers can recommend the best-
case solutions for testing, and design sprints distill
the potential outcome of whatever investment
is necessary.
Design sprints mitigate architectural constraints
because the team builds a business case for the
investment, including adoption expectations
and payback period, before investing in new
infrastructure – and often without even building
code. It’s all prototyping and user testing.
When developing the business case, be sure
to frankly assess whether you have the internal
resources to manage the change that comes with
new business models. Whether the new features
or products you introduce are breakthrough or
incremental, it’s crucial to make certain you have
the people, processes and technology to take them
to scale.
Bonus Tip
Don’t view current processes
and technology as a jail

Gaining a competitive edge through outcome
engineering requires a new mindset. Instead of
relying on customers to tell you what they want, you
anticipate new needs by scrutinizing every step of
their journey (and having the data you need to do
that). Instead of letting design be an afterthought
to technology, or retrofitting technology to design’s
vision, elevate both to mutually bring out the best
product possible. Instead of building a fully formed
product over months or years, build a minimum-
viable product (MVP) in weeks and continually
refine it.
Outcome engineering jumpstarts a culture of
innovation and leads to successful products.
Knowing that the market potential has already been
vetted, even conservative leaders can be more
receptive to technology investments. Working in
rapid cycles of ideation, prototyping and testing
creates an innovation habit. New ideas flourish,
pods bring them to life and the company becomes
adept at resource allocation.
This requires a new mindset, team structure and
processes. Many communications, media and
technology companies will benefit from working
with communications, media and technology
experienced partner that can help establish
expectations, define roles and responsibilities and
manage the cultural changes connected with the
outcome engineering approach.
Looking Ahead

About the authors
Andres Angelani
Andres Angelani is the Chief Executive Officer of Cognizant Softvision.
He has extensive experience building strategic partnerships that create new revenue streams, realizing innovative business
models and market offerings through new ways of developing software, and building high-performing teams and the right
culture to bring the best of what design and technology have to offer to industries. Andres is today at the epicenter of the digital
economy, leading programs that have reshaped businesses and industries. His passion for music, science andtechnology helped
shape his life and professional career, and has become an integral part of what he brings to his leadership in fostering innovative
culture, inspiring and growing talent in new, transformative ways.
Andres is a frequent speaker and thought leader. In 2016, he co-authored The Never-Ending Digital Journey: Creating
New Consumer Experiences Through Technology. His latest book, Transforming While Performing is his second.
He can be reached at Andres@softvision.com | www.linkedin.com/in/andresangelani.
Ingo Piroth
Vice President of Digital Engineering, Cognizant Digital Business’s Communications, Media and Technology Practice
Ingo focuses on applying cloud-native application development and modern software engineering principles to execute digital
transformation. He can be reached a Ingo@cognizant.com | www.linkedin.com/in/piroth.

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Endnotes
¹ “Gartner Survey Finds That Most Consumers Have Underwhelming Digital Experiences,” October 3, 2018.
² “Key Findings From the Gartner Customer Experience Survey,” Gartner, March 16, 2018.
³ “State of Innovation: Survey of 677 Corporate Strategy Executives,” CB Insights, 2018.
⁴ “Build Your Creative Confidence: Customer Journey Map,” IDEO, March 21, 2019.

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