Reviewed by Asher Syed for Readers' Favorite

Connecting Goals to Impacts and Outcomes by Claude Hanhart and Rachel Collins argues that product teams frequently build the wrong thing because companies begin work before defining the exact customer action they want to change. Vague business language creates situations where executives, developers, designers, and testers move toward different goals while believing they are aligned. Using a restaurant ordering platform as its central example, the authors explain how teams can replace assumption-driven planning with measurable outcomes tied directly to customer behavior. Hanhart and Collins present communication as the mechanism that determines whether software solves a real customer problem or simply adds more features to an already crowded product. Their approach centers on defining success before development begins so every product decision remains connected to a visible business result.

Claude Hanhart and Rachel Collins wrote Connecting Goals to Impacts and Outcomes for people who keep asking why talented employees can work toward the same company objective and still produce results that do not match each other. What gives this book value is the way the authors explain how businesses can connect a goal to a specific customer action that employees can actually measure, test, and improve inside daily operations. I appreciated the section explaining how teams use spike investigations to answer unanswered questions before software development begins because the authors show how that process prevents expensive confusion later. Their explanation of writing internal press releases before building a product also stood out since it forces companies to define what success will look like before money and labor are committed. Hanhart and Collins write with the confidence of people who have spent years inside product teams watching companies lose time through vague communication. This is a business book that treats organizational thinking like something practical, teachable, and worth getting right. Very highly recommended.