Product principles help accelerate decision-making and trade-offs across product execution stages. They are solution-agnostic and are not truisms. Aligning on principles early with cross-functions and leadership leads to higher velocity and empowerment. Product principles can evolve as problem definitions and solution definitions become clear.
Accelerate decision-making for velocity
Principles should be relevant to the product, and are not like values or mission statements. Here are examples
- Above all else, show the data.1
- Working software over comprehensive documentation.2
- Human error? No, bad design. When all else fails, standardize.3
Examples I have used:
- Be awesome at x, great at y, and ok at z.
- Check the box on x, but not be full-fledged like y.
- More like x and less like y.
- Optimize for persona x and manage persona y’s expectation.
Solution-agnostic
Product principles should be timeless, at least over the duration of the product life cycle. On the other hand, product strategy or solutions may change or there may be several alternatives. Principles should help guide and inspire product thinking and trade-offs, but do not need to yield competitive advantage.
Not truisms
Platitudes such as “deliver customer value” are so obvious that they are of little to no use in decision-making. Principles are neither hard & fast rules nor done decisions to apply mechanically.
Align and empower
Principles provide clear guidelines while empowering the product team with autonomy to apply them in specific situations. Aligning early on principles is done as part of the Product Opportunity Brief alignment.
PS: Typically I write about building products. I write to pay it forward and to clarify my thinking.
Niran Kundapur 