Narrative Debt

To all the aspiring Product Managers, I'm excited to introduce an interesting concept for your upcoming product journey: Narrative Debt.

Before delving into it, let's set the tone with a quote: "If your goal is building a castle, you must wait till it's complete. But if your goal is joy you can celebrate each brick you place."

Narrative Debt is a concept that refers to unresolved plots, characters, and storylines left in a story.

It is caused when a creator introduces twists and plots in a story but leaves them in suspension or unresolved.

This might cause dissatisfaction among the audience leaving them unanswered.

It is like when you know about a character with supernatural powers like Amrendera Bahubali early in the story, and you're super curious about what special powers it has. If the creator never talks about the powers again or leaves its purpose a mystery, you might feel a bit disappointed, as the story owes you an explanation. That's the narrative debt piling up.

So, narrative debt is like the author making promises to you through the story, saying, "Hey, I'll tell you about this cool thing later," but then forgetting to keep those promises. It's like having a bunch of questions in your mind at the end of the story that never get answered

If we relate the concept of narrative debt to product management it can be applied to the evolution and development of a product especially in the case of promises made to users relating to users and features introduced.

1) Evolution of a product vision

There is a set vision while developing a product, overtime the product vision might evolve and changes in the core functionalities, target audience, and vision of the product without informing the user might result in narrative debt.

2) User Expectations

When a product is launched or certain changes are made, a lot of promises are made to the user regarding optimum performance, easy-to-understand UI, and usability, failing to address these concerns will result in narrative debt

3) Customer Feedback

Customer feedback such as flaws in functionality, difficulties in the journey, and performance issues serve as narrative debt, not addressing these issues in time might affect the trust and user satisfaction of the product.

4) Feature development

While a product is introduced product managers often tend to promise features and enhancements to the users which serve as a narrative element, if issues in the product aren't addressed properly on time then it would serve as narrative debt

Introducing new features and innovation is important for a product but it should align with user expectations while addressing the existing issues and delivering on promises made, maintaining this balance between innovation and stability creates a satisfying product narrative for the users.