EMPOWERED

CHAPTER 39Product Principles and Ethics

Product principles complement the product vision by stating the values and beliefs that are intended to inform the many product decisions that will need to be made.

When we empower product teams, we are giving them problems to solve, and we are giving them the context required to make good decisions. The product vision is a major part of that context, but there will always be issues that arise during the product discovery and delivery work.

A few of these issues will be major enough that the product team will want to escalate them to a broader group of product leaders and impacted stakeholders. But for the majority of normal product decisions, we can provide the team with the information they need. The product principles play a major role in this.

So many decisions revolve around trade‐offs, and the product principles help to illuminate the values we prioritize when we make these trade‐offs.

The product team needs to understand these principles and the reasoning behind each one.

As a very common example, in most products, there are often trade‐offs between ease of use and security. Clearly both ease of use and security are important benefits for users, and it's also true that these two goals are not always at odds. But when these goals are at odds, this is where product principles can help. To continue with the example, this conflict often shows up when focused on rapid growth.

If the company is focused on growth, the teams will likely ...