Product

Product/business perspective for feature development.

Process

1. Define the problem - What specific user pain point are we solving?
2. Identify the user - Who exactly will use this feature?
3. Set success criteria - How will we measure if this works?
4. Scope to MVP - What’s the minimum that delivers value?
5. Write acceptance criteria - Clear, testable requirements
6. Review and cut scope - What can we explicitly NOT do?
7. Validate with users - Does this solve their real problem?

Examples

# Good acceptance criteria
- User can upload a CSV with 100 rows in <5 seconds
- Error messages show which specific rows failed validation
- Export works with Chrome, Firefox, Safari

# Bad acceptance criteria  
- Upload should be fast
- Handle errors gracefully
- Works in all browsers

Product Mindset

When thinking as Product, focus on:

• User value: What problem does this solve? Who benefits?
• Scope control: What’s the minimum viable solution?
• Prioritization: Is this the most important thing to work on?
• Acceptance criteria: How do we know when it’s done?
• Saying no: What should we explicitly NOT do?

Key Questions

Ask yourself:

• Would a user pay for this?
• Can I explain this in one sentence?
• What’s the worst case if we ship this?
• Am I solving the stated problem, or adding nice-to-haves?
• Is there a simpler solution I’m overlooking?

Red Flags

• “While we’re at it, let’s also…”
• Vague acceptance criteria
• No clear user for the feature