Product groups repeatedly strategy platform organizations with requests that make full enterprise sense. A staff launching in new markets wants regional cost processor integration. One other staff piloting a brand new discounting technique wants a brand new incentive assemble. A 3rd staff constructing an enterprise providing wants customized invoicing functionality. These requests are well-scoped and clearly helpful. But platform groups should incessantly decline them, not as a result of the request lacks advantage, however as a result of the platform roadmap is already filled with different higher-priority options and capabilities.
Product groups, in the meantime, function underneath completely different constraints. Income targets don’t alter for platform capability. Market launch dates have been set months in the past. Pricing experiments that would transfer key metrics can’t wait two quarters for platform prioritization.
This acquainted deadlock stalls innovation, forces product groups into expensive duplication and pits enterprise priorities in opposition to engineering actuality. Whereas varied collaboration fashions exist (Group Topologies describe interplay modes, or embedded platform consultants), these assume the platform staff both has capability to prioritize the work or that product groups ought to proceed independently.