⤴️ EVO11: 36 capabilities of a Product team
Product Evolution is about helping Product professionals, Product teams, Product organizations and the products they develop to level up.
When it comes to Product teams, one key facet of levelling up is developing the right team capabilities.
This edition of the newsletter offers a quick intro about capabilities, along with definitions of 36 capabilities that are useful for a Product team.
Keep on evolving,
Bülent
What is a capability? Why this matters?
A capability is the ability to do something in a specific context.
One way of understanding capabilities is by looking at them as a mix of:
Skills - people’s ability (or lack of) to do something well, usually across contexts;
Tools - available (or not) in the specific context to help people to do something well;
Setup - the configuration specific to the context that helps (or not) people to do something well.
Let’s take a generic example, and then a Product-related one, at an individual level.
Let’s say we look first at fishing.
Your capability of fishing an ocean fish for example, depends on:
Your skill of fishing - based on previous experience;
Your tools - like proper fishing rod, reel, bait;
Your setup - are you able to get to the proper spot in the ocean to be able to fish that ocean fish.
Even the most skilful fisherman doesn’t have the capability of fishing that ocean fish if: they don’t have the proper tools (e.g. fishing with bare hands) or they aren’t able to go the where the ocean fish is.
Let’s look next at problem discovery.
Your capability of discovering user needs and painpoints of a specific user segment for an existing product for example, depends on:
Your skill of problem discovery - based on previous experience;
Your tools - like a proper interview guide or user survey, a user base that you can segment, tools for communicating with users or tools for synthesizing findings;
Your setup - like being aligned with others in the Product team on what you’re seeking and why, or having bandwidth for creating and improving the tools you need, for running problem discovery activities, for synthesizing findings or having a product development process that incorporates such activities in what’s Business as Usual for the Product team.
Even the most skilful problem discoverer doesn’t have the capability of discovering user needs and pain points of a specific user segment for that existing product if there’s no way to pinpoint that specific segment (e.g. lacking access to the user base or to ways to segment the user base), or if they have zero bandwidth for doing such activities for example.
Looking at performance (getting results in a specific context) through a capabilities lens matters because it offers a richer perspective on what helps a person, a team or an organization to do specific things well. It’s not only about having the skills present, but also about having a proper tool and setup.
36 capabilities of Product teams
Now, moving to Product teams, below you can find the Product capabilities that have a high probability to help them develop successful products, across contexts.
The list is based on the 6 dimensions of Product Development, detailed in the Periodic Table of Product Development (see an overview and download the one-page PDF in EVO3), which was the basis also for the Product Craft macro skill area (detailed in the Product Career Map edition in EVO10).
While you are reading the list, you can use it as a quick assessment when thinking about your own Product team.
As a Product team, …
Product Delivery:
Delivery Planning - we are able to plan our Product delivery work;
Building - we are able to build what’s needed to develop our product;
Testing - we are able to test what we’ve built;
Integration - we are able to integrate what we’ve built;
Deployment - we are able to deploy what we’ve built;
and Launch - we are able to launch what we’ve built.
Product Metrics:
Awareness - we are able to measure and understand how people become aware of our product;
Acquisition - we are able to measure and understand how people become users of our product;
Activation - we are able to measure and understand how new users start using our product;
Retention - we are able to measure and understand how users use our product and why they keep using it or not;
Referral - we are able to measure and understand how users refer our product to other people;
and Revenue - we are able to measure and understand how much money the product makes;
Product Discovery:
Niche Discovery - we are able to discover specific niches of users, or user segments/sub-segments, that might benefit from the product we are developing;
Problem Discovery - we are able to discover user contexts, jobs to be done, needs, desired outcomes and pain points;
Solution Discovery - we are able to discover proper solutions or concepts for the user problems we’ve decided to address with our product;
Product Design Discovery - we are able to discover ways to properly embed the right solutions or concepts in our product;
Adoption Discovery - we are able to discover ways to encourage user adoption of the product aspects we implement and deliver to them;
and Growth Discovery - we are able to discover ways to grow and scale our product.
Product Marketing:
Segmentation - we are able to segment the market, the customer base and the user base;
Positioning - we are able to position the product in the way we desire in front of customers and users;
Brand - we are able to create and develop a useful product brand;
Pricing - we are able to price our product in proper ways;
GTM (Go to Market) - we are able to get our product to the desired market, customer base and user base;
and Communication - we are able to communicate product-related messages to our target audiences;
Product Insights:
Market Insights - we are able to keep up-to-date with and synthesize relevant information about the market;
Competition Insights - we are able to keep up-to-date with and synthesize relevant information about the competition;
Tech Insights - we are able to keep up-to-date with and synthesize relevant information about the technologies we use or might use;
Customer Insights - we are able to keep up-to-date with and synthesize relevant information about the customers, like customer needs, business objectives (in the B2B space) or purchase behavior;
User Insights - we are able to keep up-to-date with and synthesize relevant information about the users, like user needs and behavior;
and Organizational Insights - for Product teams in larger organizations: we are able to keep up-to-date with and synthesize relevant information about what happens in the rest of the organization, like organization needs, key stakeholder needs or interdependencies with other teams.
Product Strategy:
Product Vision - we are able to craft or link to a product vision and then use it to guide our product decisions;
Strategic Directions - we are able to define strategic directions for our product and then use these directions to guide our product decisions;
Business Strategy Fit - we are able to link and keep our product strategy linked to the overarching business strategy;
Product Goals - we are able to define and measure progress towards product goals, and then use them to guide our product decisions;
Strategic Initiatives - we are able to define and pursue strategic initiatives through which we implement our product strategy;
and Product Roadmap - we are able to create and keep up-to-date a product roadmap that helps us implement our product strategy and guides our product decisions.
Buy, Build or Partner decisions applied to Capabilities
If you, as a Product team, or someone else (with higher decision rights in the organization) decides for you that you need to develop certain capabilities in order to perform going forward, the typical options are: buy, build or partner.
Let’s illustrate this through an example. Let’s consider you need to develop your Product Marketing capabilities set, given that your product needs a better segmentation, positioning, brand, pricing, GTM motion and/or communication.
The buy option would mean, in this case, hiring a Product Marketer to join your team, coming with proper skills, maybe with a proper toolkit (or at least knowledge about a proper toolkit needed), and the work needed to properly integrate this new Product Marketer in the team (creating a proper setup).
The build option would mean, in this case, probably upskilling the Product Manager in your team with proper Product Marketing skills, equipping them with a proper toolkit, and the work needed to properly accommodate this new set of activities in the Product team (creating a proper setup).
The partner option would mean, in this case, probably working project-based with an experienced freelance Product Marketer or Product Marketing agency to improve those Product Marketing aspects. The partner would come with the proper toolkit and you would need to do the work required for properly integrating this collaboration in the activities of the Product team (creating a proper setup).
The reality of developing capabilities is that teams are usually going for a mix, like:
partnering for a period, while acquiring internal capabilities;
partnering for a period, while building internal capabilities;
or acquiring and building internal capabilities at the same time.
Bülent Duagi is a Sr. Strategic adviser for Tech companies and a lifelong learner. He works at the intersection of Strategy, Foresight, Leadership, Org Design, Product and Capability Development. Learn more by exploring his professional one pager or connect on LinkedIn.