Why do so many product teams feel busy but deliver little that moves the needle? The usual suspects are familiar: too many stakeholders, competing KPIs, hand-offs that look like triangles but behave like queues. If you are a CPO, CTO or head of product, the question you should be asking is not whether you need more engineers, but whether the way your teams are organised helps them discover, decide and deliver with real ownership.
From activity to outcomes: the core failure
The most common failure I see is not a lack of technical skill or design talent; it’s a lack of clear ownership for outcomes. Teams are measured on output (stories completed, features shipped) rather than impact (user behaviour change, business outcomes). That encourages optimisation of process, not of value.
Fix: reframe success metrics around a small set of outcomes the team can influence directly. Give them the authority to change the product, pricing or experience to reach those outcomes. The model that helps with this is the product trio — product manager, designer and engineer — aligned on a shared goal and empowered to experiment. See a practical primer on product trios here: Product Talk: Product Trios.
Three structural changes that make autonomous teams work
- Small, mission-aligned teams: Keep teams small and accountable for a single, measurable mission. Spotify popularised small multi-skilled teams (squads) that own a narrow slice of the product; the principle scales beyond music.
- Outcome-based contracts: Instead of feature briefs, set outcome contracts — what success looks like and the constraints (data, budget, SLA). Let the trio choose the how. This reduces approvals while increasing creativity and responsibility.
- Fast discovery and cheap experiments: Protect discovery time. If every new idea gets funnelled into long delivery cycles, teams revert to safe work. Prioritise rapid, low-cost experiments that validate assumptions before major build decisions.
Practical ways leaders can remove friction
Senior leaders must stop confusing activity with autonomy. Here are concrete actions that change the environment for product trios:
- Replace feature sign-off with outcome checkpoints: Move from approving scope to validating learning. A monthly outcome review with the trio is far more useful than a fortnightly sign-off meeting.
- Measure health, not busyness: Track experiments launched, hypotheses tested and learning velocity alongside business KPIs. Reward teams for abandoning failing bets quickly.
- Align budgets to missions: Fund missions, not projects. That gives teams the flexibility to pivot or double down based on early signals.
Real-world example: Monzo and product autonomy
Fintechs like Monzo have leaned into small, cross-functional teams with clear product goals. Their teams are empowered to own features end-to-end and are evaluated on clear customer and financial outcomes rather than ticket counts. The result: faster learning cycles and more customer-centric decisions. It’s not magic — it’s structure and discipline that allow teams to own the problem, not just the implementation.
Common objections and how to answer them
Leaders often worry that autonomy creates chaos or duplication. Real autonomy needs guardrails:
- Guardrail — a clear mission map: A single source of truth for product missions prevents duplication. Each team’s mission should sit on a visible map of strategic objectives.
- Guardrail — shared standards: Keep engineering and UX standards common so teams can move quickly without reintroducing technical debt.
- Guardrail — cadence for integration: Regular cross-team integration points prevent unexpected conflicts while preserving team independence.
Bringing it together: three steps to start today
- Pick one mission: Choose one business problem that matters and move one trio to own it end-to-end for 8–12 weeks.
- Set two outcome KPIs: One customer metric and one business metric. Make them small enough to influence but large enough to matter.
- Protect discovery budget: Allow the trio to run at least three validated experiments before any large-scale delivery decision.
A forward-looking note
Organisations that master empowered product trios will win on adaptability. As markets accelerate, the ability to learn faster than competitors becomes the differentiator. This isn’t about copying another company’s org chart; it’s about creating a culture where teams are measured for impact, trusted to decide and supported by clear strategic guardrails. If you want to move from busy to valuable, start by asking whether the teams closest to your customers can actually change the things that matter.
Call to action: If you’re a product leader preparing to re-structure teams, begin with a single mission and a single empowered trio. Test it, learn, then scale — and share what worked. If you’d like a short checklist to get started, drop a note via the contact page on this site.
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