The Five Ws (and one H) of Digital Product Development
Digital product development is a team sport. It takes many skills to develop, launch and maintain a successful digital product. But with so many roles and responsibilities: who on the product development team is responsible for what?
Enter the Five Ws (and one H!) of digital product development!
Most of us are familiar with the “reporter’s questions” — Who? What? Where? When? Why? and How? These are basic questions one can ask to learn about a situation or event. But they are also outstanding parallels to the required components of successful digital product development. Answering these questions provides direction to your team and makes clear who is responsible for what parts of the process.
Why Define the Ws (and one H)?
The development of digital products has many challenges. But a common and costly self-inflicted wound is when a team lacks clarity of responsibility. Competing interests thinking they are “leading” an aspect of development results in a muddled, disjointed effort that necessitates extra work for your team. Conversely, unclaimed responsibility often results in unfinished work.
Ensuring your team has clarity into development responsibilities is foundational to the success of your product.
The Five Ws (and one H)
“What?”
As in “What are we developing?”
Responsible Party: Product Management
Ultimately, product management is responsible for determining what the development team works on. This is represented through the Product Roadmap (which provides overall direction) and Product Specs (which provide specific detail regarding new features and components, as well as bug fixes and updates to existing technology).
You’ll notice that I qualified the responsibility for “What?” by adding ultimately. I note this because while this is the responsibility of the product manager it should be a collaborative effort involving growth, project management, engineering and more.
“Why?”
As in “Why is this the priority?”
Responsible Party: Product Management
It is not enough for a product manager to state “What?” needs to be developed, but they should be articulating “Why?” work is being prioritized as well.
Product managers make strategic choices and the rationale for those choices should be shared with the team developing the product. When the team understands the reason work is being prioritized (contractual obligations, feature parity with a competitor, direct customer request, making your product stand out in the market, etc…) they are better able to make the important everyday choices that go into development.
“Where?”
As in “Where is this product going to be used?”
Responsible Party: Product Management
Similar to “Why?”, answering “Where?” provides your team with key details about where the product will be used that can affect any number of your development choices.
An Operational Design Domain (ODD) is a set of operational design parameters for an automated system. Often associated with automated autonomous vehicles, an ODD defines the locations and conditions in which the robot can safely operate. In many cases robotics teams will have a set ODD and develop their product to suit the specific parameters defined within.
As a product manager for digital tools you can apply the same logic to your product. Ask yourself:
- Where will the product be used?
- What are the conditions the product will be used in? (Weather and environment, sitting vs standing vs driving, etc…).
- Are there limitations on where I expect the product can be used effectively and safely?
When product management defines “Where?” you are providing information to your team that can lead to a more targeted, refined product that better suits the needs of the end user.
“Who?”
As in “Who is going to work on what part of this product?”
Responsible Party: The Scrum Master or Project Manager
The Scrum Master or Project Manager is responsible for determining WHO on the team is doing specific work. The Scrum Master should already know each team member’s availability and should be the person planning sprints and assigning tasks.
Depending on your scrum master’s technical expertise this work may be done in partnership with an engineering manager who can help determine which team members should be utilized based on experience or specialty skills.
“When?”
As in “When will this work be done?”
Responsible Party: The Scrum Master and Product Management
Product’s main contribution to “When?” should be in terms of product roadmap priority. Product Management should be stating the priority order of work and likely the business quarter in which the work’s completion should be done.
But it’s the Scrum Master that controls the schedule. They are in control of the day-to-day operations of the team and serve as the source of truth for answering the age old frantic question “Are we going to make that deadline!?!?!?”
“How?”
As in “How do we complete the work?”
Responsible Party: Engineering
Engineering is special. (Just ask! They’ll be happy to tell you!) While everyone else on this list is answering “W” questions, they get the lone “H” question — “How?”.
It is the responsibility of engineering to detail HOW they plan to solve a problem or complete a task. Through the combined efforts of the product development team the goal is set, now engineering must determine the plan to get there and then share it with the larger team.
The specific manner in which engineering shares their plans can change from team to team, but it usually involves some sort of reviewed engineering document that is then translated (with help from the Scrum Master) into trackable tasks.
Responsibility vs Contribution
The goal of this article is to provide clarity into who is responsible for aspects of the product development process. But just because you’re not responsible for something doesn’t mean you can’t contribute. As stated at the beginning of this article digital product development is a team effort — which means that contributions to each effort can come from anywhere.
