Escaping the Feature Factory to (Re)create Value

Introduction: the trap of production without impact

Do you recognize this situation?

• Your backlog is ready for the next 12 months.
• The team is breaking velocity records.
• You just announced 30 new features to the executive committee.
• All metrics are green.

And yet...

While you count your features, your customers count their frustrations. Business indicators have been declining for several months. Support tickets are piling up. Salespeople no longer dare to visit their clients after the sale.

The problem: You optimize the delivery machine, not the impact generated. You measure activity, not the change in users' lives.

Welcome to the feature factory. A place where production becomes an end in itself, where pace hides emptiness, where movement is mistaken for progress. This model not only wastes resources, it actively destroys long-term value.

This article provides a clear diagnosis and offers a concrete alternative: shifting from a production culture to an impact culture. Where every line of code answers a single question: what value are we really creating?

This article is based on the exclusive interview with Nicolas Cappello, co-founder of IKKI League and product transformation expert, conducted at Agile Tour Montpellier 2025. Watch the full video interview for his concrete advice and field experience.

📺 Video format available:

The 3 signals of the feature factory

Recognizing the symptoms is crucial. These signals, often seen as indicators of good health, are actually red alerts.

Signal #1: the endless backlog

Is your backlog planned for 6 months? 1 year? 2 years?

This is the first signal. Pretending to know what you'll develop in a year is a dangerous illusion. The market changes. Needs evolve. Users discover new uses.

A fixed backlog turns the team into mere executors. No room to discover, learn, pivot. Just following a plan that will be obsolete before it's finished.

Signal #2: obsession with velocity

"We did 47 points this sprint!"

Great. But what did you solve for the customer?

When teams only talk about velocity and points, they've lost the thread. They optimize the speed of the machine, not the value produced. They know "how much" and "how", but no longer "why".

Technical performance has replaced real impact. The team runs fast, but in which direction?

Signal #3: management counting features

"We released 30 features this quarter!"

When a manager celebrates the number of features delivered, it's the final symptom. The organization looks at the machine, not what it produces. Success is measured in work volume, not problems solved.

This accounting pride reveals a deep disconnect from reality. Optimization is for internal metrics, not for the customer.

These three signals are not trivial. They are the pillars of a system that generates massive costs, often invisible in the short term.

The hidden costs of the feature factory

The feature factory doesn't just waste resources. It erodes three essential capitals of the company.

Eroding customer trust

Bugs pile up in the backlog. "Not critical," they say. But every bug is a pebble in the customer's shoe.

The company prioritizes the next novelty rather than fixing existing problems. Implicit message to the customer: your daily frustrations are not our priority.

Result: "Trust is gained in drops and lost in liters."

Every useless feature, every ignored bug, is a drop of trust lost. Until the day the tank is empty.

Ignored gold mines

Support tickets? "Problems to manage."

Sales feedback? "They don't understand the tech."

Reported bugs? "We'll see later."

Yet, these sources are gold mines. Customers who call support are people who make the effort to tell you what's wrong. They offer you their time and frustration. It's an invaluable gift.

Salespeople stake their credibility on your promises. When the product doesn't deliver, their trust erodes. Excluding them after the sale is cutting off a source of field truth.

Treating this feedback as a nuisance is developing blindly. It's creating solutions to imaginary problems while real problems pile up.

Team disengagement

"Go ahead Roger, run the backlog."

No one chose this profession to become a robot. Developers, designers, product owners entered tech to create, solve, make an impact. On their scale,change the world.

Reducing them to executors who follow a plan without understanding the why kills their passion. Without connection to impact, without understanding the problem, work loses its meaning.

Result: Passionate professionals become disengaged operators. Quality drops. Turnover explodes. Innovation disappears.

These hidden costs accumulate silently. Until it's too late to reverse the trend.

The new paradigm: from feature to emotion

Escaping this factory is a profound perspective shift that puts humans at the center.

Emotion as a compass

We don't buy a product for what it is. We buy it for the emotion it brings and the future it promises.

Value isn't in the features. It's in the feeling. In the change created in someone's life.

Take the example of Capitaine Train (before its acquisition). Technically simple. But the experience was smooth. Support responded quickly. Customers felt respected.

Result: Exceptional loyalty.

This isn't soft philosophy. It's hard business. Loyalty, recommendation, profitability—all come from this emotional connection. Emotions create economic value.

The roadmap as a conversation support

In the old world, the roadmap is a contract. Set in stone. Non-negotiable.

In the new paradigm, it's a pretext for discussion. A support to ask the real questions:

• What problem are we solving?
• For whom?
• Why now?
• What change are we creating?

The roadmap becomes alive. It evolves with learning. It invites questioning rather than blind execution.

It's no longer a list of deliverables. It's a strategic hypothesis to test and adjust continuously.

The impact framework

To make this change concrete, you need a simple and powerful model:the three-legged stool.Like a real stool, if one leg is missing, everything collapses.

Leg 1: business impact

The company must be profitable. That's the foundation. Without money, no salaries, no investment, no innovation. Every euro invested must serve a clear economic objective.

It's not wild capitalism. It's realism. You're paid to do quality work your company can sell.

Leg 2: customer impact

Does the product really solve a problem? Does it change someone's life? Does it generate positive emotions?

That's the product's reason for being. Without customer impact, no sustainable business. Customers leave. Reputation collapses. Growth stops.

Leg 3: team impact (the often forgotten leg)

Is the team learning? Progressing? Enjoying themselves?

This third leg is often neglected. Yet, an exceptional product is always created by passionate people. People who marvel "like children" at discovering and creating.

Without learning, without enjoyment, the team becomes mechanical. Creativity dies. Innovation stops. The product becomes generic.

The three legs are interdependent.A profitable product that frustrates customers will be abandoned. A beloved product that exhausts teams will see its quality collapse. Balance is vital.

Making impact visible: the 4 walls

To anchor this approach, you need to materialize it. The 4 walls make discussions tangible:

• The customer wall

  Who has what problem? What change are we aiming for in their life? That's the fundamental why.

• The product wall

  What solutions do we offer? How do they perform? That's the answer to the problem.

• The problem wall

  What obstacles are blocking us? Technical, organizational, political. Making problems visible is the first step to solving them.

• The learning wall

  What has the team learned? What standards does it set? How does it progress? It's the mirror of its maturity.

These walls turn the abstract into concrete. They force the right conversations. They make the invisible visible.

Transformational leadership: from boss to servant

No transformation is possible without a profound change in management. The manager is no longer the one who controls. He becomes the one who facilitates.

The translator manager

Teams speak tech. Management speaks business. The gap is huge.

The manager becomes an interpreter. He translates bugs in the backlog into customer churn risk. He turns technical debt into a growth blocker. He converts field frustrations into strategic opportunities.

Without this translation, worlds don't understand each other. Teams stay frustrated. Management stays blind. Nothing changes.

The servant manager

"Create the conditions for me to exercise my talent."

That's the new demand from teams. They no longer want a boss who commands. They want a leader who unblocks.

Concretely: The manager identifies and removes obstacles. He protects the team from interruptions. He negotiates resources. He defends decisions. He takes the hits when things go wrong.

This managerial courage is rare. It requires accepting that success is measured by the team's success, not personal authority. It's a deep ego shift.

The connector manager

Too often, developers never see customers. Absurd when you know customers are already there (in support tickets, sales feedback, forums).

The manager organizes the connection. He takes developers to meet customers. He invites support to retrospectives. He has salespeople testify.

When a developer truly sees a user's frustration, everything changes. He codes differently. He proposes solutions. He refuses absurd requests. He becomes an actor, not an executor.

Conclusion: the moment of choice

The feature factory is not inevitable. It's a choice. An easy choice that leads to insignificance.

The path to impact is demanding. It requires courage:

• The courage to say "no" to features
• The courage to fix bugs before innovating
• The courage to meet customers in the field
• The courage to admit mistakes
• The courage to change

But it's the only viable path. Customers no longer have patience for mediocre products. Talents no longer want meaningless jobs. The competition doesn't wait.

Transformation starts now. Not in a strategy committee. Not in a seminar. But in your next meeting.

Ask this simple question:What problem are we really trying to solve, and for whom?

If you don't have a clear answer, stop everything. Go see your customers. Listen to your support. Talk to your salespeople.

The answers are already there. You just have to listen.