Escaping the Build Trap - Melissa Perri 

Technically led by the "customer's needs and satisfying those" is the very definition of Product

@@alexdubelko3349 Then it's need driven, not product driven. Product can be a way to meet customer needs; a solution space. It doesn't have to be a product that achieves that purpose.

@@kobac8207 When people refer to 'Product' it doesn't mean it's an actual 'product', it can be a service, etc. Product means it's the instrument that delivers 'value' by satisfying the customer's needs, pains, desires, etc. I think your company is thinking of Product as simply making product specs or something. But what you are saying is exactly a Product Led company

​@@alexdubelko3349 I don't agree for the reasons I've mentioned. Product being a solution space, needs being the problem space. Talking about the customer needs instead of the product or anything in the solution space anchors the conversations and aligns the effort. Service was never interpreted as a product, although your definition would like to extend that far. I'd say that's also one of the reasons there's a distinction between service and product companies. As a side note, having a 'product' department or function in the company carries higher risk of being interpreted as something that is a more valuable function and that everyone else is a supporting role.

@@kobac8207 Thanks for the comment kobac. I see what you're saying about solution space. You should actually check out her book 'Built Trap' but also check out "Customer Discovery Habits" (Really good book). Many of these leading Product books make a huge point to stop thinking in the solution space, since your solution is built on a ton of assumptions. Spend time interviewing, researching, etc and understanding the customer's story, then go back validate, test hypothesis on whether you actually understand the need, if the need is big enough, urgent enough, important enough, etc, then you spend time coming up with multiple solution hypotheses to test against the customer's problems. I think there's an implicit instinct for Product people to jump to an instant solution before throughly exploring the problem. But really good Product is led by customer need or that's what it should be.

As a Dev, hearing someone say "My developers" makes my skin crawl everytime. If you're on the team, just say "My team" or "The Devs on my team". 🤷‍♂️

You end up with betamax

n.- «Peanut buttering (v)-The tendency to evenly distribute resources across the full range of a product rather than focusing on a few core Value Propositions.