One Fish, Two Fish

I recently was the featured speaker at an event sponsored by the local (Minnesota, USA) chapter of the Product Development and Management Association (PDMA). My topic was how teams and businesses can get trapped by their requirements-based models and processes.

The situation I described looks something like this: a business identifies a challenge or problem, someone smart thinks up a clever solution, and that solution is considered during an annual planning process. Eventually a project gets funded, and one of the first things that happens is requirements are “gathered.” This triggers a chain of events where a well-meaning, talented team iterates on these requirements until the product is released. The team may perform really well, delivering the requirements, on-time and on-budget—but they also may fail to actually solve the business problem.

Why does this happen? It’s complex, but I think businesses often get snared in this trap because they operate in a context—a milieu, if you don’t mind a little French—where estimating effort and then defining requirements of a solution they determined up-front is the only way of operating that they know.

To illustrate this pattern, in my PDMA talk I shared a modern parable you might be familiar with. Two little fish are swimming along in the ocean. They meet a friendly bigger fish who smiles and says, “How’s the water, boys?” As the big fish swims away, one little fish turns to his buddy and asks, “What is water?”

The late writer David Foster Wallace used this story in a memorable graduation speech at Kenyon College twenty years ago. It’s reprinted in a brief volume called This Is Water: Some Thoughts, Delivered on a Significant Occasion, about Living a Compassionate Life. You should read the speech—but only after you’ve finished this issue of The Pollinator, of course.

The tidy moral is that when we’re deeply embedded in a certain environment, like a fish in water, that environment is all we know, so we aren’t even aware of its influence on our thinking and our behavior. We might not even know that context exists. So a business might not realize there are entirely different ways of working, beyond the water—ways that aren’t requirements-driven or project-based. Ask them about their operating model, and they might just say, “What’s an operating model?”

Effective product teams (and entire organizations; this problem is bigger than the product team!) will consider their own assumptions about how value is generated. They’ll spend a lot of time in the problem space. They’ll operate with agility in discovery, not just development. They’ll get to know the cast of characters—users, customers, stakeholders—affected by their products. They’ll reframe (and fund) a team—not a project—as the mechanism for generating value, shifting their focus from outputs to outcomes.

They’ll inspect and identify their own water.

On to the Garden,

P.S. By the way, that PDMA event seems to have garnered many new Pollinator subscribers. Welcome, newcomers! The water here is just lovely.

Around the Garden

Identity crisis

Check it out: Identifying your org’s digital products, Jeff Patton, Jeff Patton & Associates

A challenge that product leaders know all too well is defining what their products actually are. It sounds simple, but in many organizations—especially those that don’t sell digital products directly—it’s surprisingly difficult to draw clear boundaries around what constitutes a "product." We explored this challenge in past Pollinators, like Setting the edges, in the October 2024 issue.

Jeff Patton, a renowned product development thinker and consultant, tackles this challenge head-on. In this 2024 article, Patton introduces a “decomposition model” to help teams break down their ecosystem into distinct product layers. Using the example of a bank, he defines five levels of products:

• End products

• End-customer enabling products

• Employee enabling products

• Product team enabling products

• Partner enabling products

By working through these layers, teams can better identify what their products actually are—and who they truly serve.

Our favorite passage comes early in Patton’s article, where he urges product managers and teams to start by thinking about customers and users who must get value from the product:

Start with the customer and user, and you will always have The Pollinator’s heart.

This world we occupy is an inspiration

Check it out: The Secret to Innovative UX: Look Beyond the Digital World, Rodolpho Henrique, UX Magazine

I’m a bit skeptical of any advice that claims it offers “the secret” or “the cure”—that sneaky definite article the indicates a mode of discourse that always puts me on alert.

But then I read this recent article from designer Rodolpho Henrique and thought: if this isn’t the secret, at least it is a secret to innovative UX.

Henrique advises UX and product designers to draw inspiration for their work from the analog realm (you know, this thing I call “reality”). By carefully observing patterns and practices in architecture, nature, and physical product design, designers can inject fresh thinking into their work, resulting in more intuitive and user-centered digital interfaces. For example, to Henrique, the principles of ergonomics and wayfinding—common considerations for designers of physical objects and spaces—are also vital in digital contexts.

Henrique’s thesis? By integrating insights from the physical world, UX professionals will craft digital products that are not only functional but also deeply engaging and aligned with natural human behaviors. He’s right, of course. Henrique's perspective reminds us that innovation often stems from interdisciplinary exploration and a willingness to look beyond traditional boundaries. And maybe that is the secret.

Roadmap as story

Check it out: A simplified product roadmap storytelling framework, Noa Ganot, Product Coalition 

Two things I’m a sucker for: a product roadmap framework, and an origin story of a product career that begins in the arts and humanities. Noa Ganot, an Israeli product consultant and leader, offers both here.

Ganot roots her approach to roadmapping in her own professional and personal interest in theater. A recent re-exploration of this discipline helped her strengthen both her acting and her product management, since in both domains, you “need to be willing to ponder, live with unclarity for a while, and keep exploring.”

(Tangent: I honestly think some smart tech recruiter should build a business recruiting product pros from theatre and music scenes. It’s such an untapped source of latent product talent. You’re welcome, recruiters.)

Then, Ganot describes a framework called GOSPA, which is based on her storytelling training and skills. GOSPA stands for Goals, Original plan and assumptions, Status, Position, and Action plan.

I think the differentiating feature here is the O element, for Original plan and assumptions. A lot of roadmap advisors recognize that a roadmap is a living document reflecting a current intent, and that roadmaps can change. But by including the original plan as part of the narrative, Ganot enables roadmappers to connect changes to the product’s origin. It’s a technique that tells an honest story while allowing space for learning and growth.

I plan to add GOSPA to my toolkit. Pollinator readers should too.

Outside the Box

Massive Science is the kind of website that reminds me of the old web, the web I first loved. It’s a digital publication with accessible writing from real working scientists on a wide range of scientific topics. One part media platform, one part educational resource, and one part citizen journalist outlet, Massive Science describes itself as a “science storytelling community” populated by “scientists telling stories about all the truth and beauty in the universe.” If that’s not a worthwhile mission, I don’t know what is.

Check it out at https://massivesci.com/.

About the Pollinator

• The Pollinator is a free publication from the Product practice at Solution Design Group (SDG). Each issue is a curated digest of noteworthy content and articles from across the internet’s vast product community.

• Solution Design Group (SDG) is an employee-owned digital product innovation and custom software development consultancy. Our team of over 200 consultants and other technology and business professionals includes experienced software engineers, technical architects, user experience designers, and product and innovation strategists. We serve companies across industries to discover promising business opportunities, build high-quality technology solutions, and improve the effectiveness of digital product teams.

• The Pollinator's editor is Jason Scherschligt, SDG's Head of Product. Please direct complaints, suggestions, and especially praise to Jason at [email protected].

• Why The Pollinator? Jason often says that as he works with leaders and teams across companies and industries, he feels like a honeybee in a garden, spending time on one flower, moving to another, collecting experiences and insights, and distributing them like pollen, so an entire garden blooms. How lovely.