Template detox?
Discussions > templates
It seems like over the last few years in the product space, we've tried to templatize EVERYTHING.
Unsure if anyone will like that feature? 👉 it has a high RICE score, must be good!
Should we expand into this new market? 👉 have you done a canvas on it? what’s the TAM?
Hmm, do customers actually want this? 👉 fire up that OST!
I have no issue with using great frameworks. Frameworks are helpful scaffolding.
But frameworks cannot replace clear thinking and shared understanding.
Product is a craft with both high ambiguity and high leverage. There's no analyzing or templatizing or frameworking our way out of that.
Maybe it’s time we detox from the templates a bit.
Less templates. More thinking. More discussions.
(Related: you can have the best market analysis and strategy ever...but if you can’t make it come alive with and through the people in your org, the best strategy is irrelevant.)
This very resonates with me. I've seen too many times people using a template, or worse, are forced to use a template, and just fill it out like a form.
Templates and their connected methods are there to guide through structured thinking. And to make thoughts explicit. But if people concentrate on the document they missed the point.
That's why I'm a big proponent of low-effort mapping. A group sees their different world-view, can agree quickly on their version of 'What's important now?' and then go back to create things.