Habitable Platforms : Why making your platform optional can help in increasing adoption

What is a Platform ?

There are quite a few definitions of Platforms that are available, but I particularly like this one by Gregor Hohpe in his awesome book Platform Strategy ( https://leanpub.com/platformstrategy ),

Platforms generate value through the interaction between their participants.

This is the most important aspect - a Platform has to generate value, or even a sense of perceived value for the participants involved, be it the consumers of the platform ( which could be service line / business teams ), or even the owners of the platform ( the core platform engineering team ).

What is a Habitable Platform ?

In his talk on 'Designing for Habitability' ( https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDSMDJXmOps ), Sam Newman explains this concept of a Habitable platform, a safe space where our stream - aligned product engineering teams feel welcome to collaborate, innovate and grow, without any pressure to mandatorily adopt the offerings that are being developed by the core platform teams.

In a habitable platform, you stay because you want to, not because you have to.

Habitable Platforms are 'Optional'

When a firm invests a significant amount of $$ in building something, there is a lot of pressure in ensuring that it is adopted, to reinforce the message to the leadership that money invested has been well spent ( which is also a key prerequisite to ask for more money in the future ).

This is true for both internal products / platforms that we want our internal teams within the organization to adopt, but also applies to offerings we have positioned for our external clients.

The only difference is that with external clients, we have no control or direct way to influence their processes, or practices, but with our internal teams, we might find a way to mandate parts of the platform, to ensure widespread adoption.

I am not saying this is a bad idea always, maybe during initial stages, the enforcement needs to be a little more strict, to get the required momentum, but over time, as the platform, and the rest of the organization becomes mature, we should take a hard look at whether mandating something is the best way to get adoption.

Will your consumers use you if you are not 'Mandatory'

Whenever I review internal platform products / offerings, and teams show my lofty adoption / consumption metrics, I ask a single question that helps uncover quite a few things :

Do you feel that your consumers will adopt your offering, if it was not mandatory

This is a really important question that a Platform Product Manager has to get to the bottom of, as this opens up a lot of different sub-questions :

• Is the Value proposition of my product / offering well-established
• Are there any other duplications within the firm that I should be aware of
• Is the consumption process seamless
• Is the cost model competitive
• Is the support model, and customer experience exceptional
• How well positioned am I against competitors in the open market
• What are my customers saying about my product

These are all questions, that sometimes get shadowed by consumption metrics that portray a rosy picture, especially for offerings that have been mandated for usage within an organization.

Optional products are better products

Product Managers are also human, and it is only natural for them to let loose a little, especially when they are aware that their consumer base is intact, no matter what they do. This typically leads to them :

• Losing focus on the actual value proportion
• Deprioritize innovation to make their product future-ready
• Deprioritize customer feedback, and support processes
• Try to reduce product costs, to make it more competitive

Basically, a mandated Platform offering is like running a monopoly business, no matter how you much you screw up, you will still be adopted.

However, if your product was Optional, your Product managers will have to work hard for even a single % increase in adoption. This will lead to them being on top of their game, as it's an open market, and your consumers can easily go to some other competitive solution available in the enterprise ( be it custom developed internal product, or a vendor offering ).

In these situations, your consumers are not forced to adopt your offering, unless they feel it can help them in their initiatives.

An Optional Platform offering will only be adopted, if it adds value to the business initiative adopting it ; no other constraint / reason will be valid.

This automatically leads to the products being market-ready, with the platform teams prioritizing innovation, cost-cutting, customer experience, user feedback, etc. - everything that a product needs to be better.

Everybody wins !

A good internal platform, helps business teams be successful by delivering credible, tangible value, even if its not mandated.

A bad internal platform, loses all its consumers, if it is not mandated.

Forcing people to use your platform isn't about enablement, it's about control

And we all know, that trying to control software developers is a bad, bad idea.

How to retain adoption in non-mandated offerings

It's natural for product managers to worry about how their offerings will fare in the open market, if they are not mandated.

This worry, or concern might lead them to advocate for a world where their offerings are mandated, to ensure that there is a steady stream of adoption opportunities.

But, since we can now agree, that is not the correct answer, the better way to look at it would be to :

• Provide a best-in-class, exceptional developer experience
• Have a clear value proposition, that explains what you are offering vs your competitors
• Simplify your consumption experience, so that it is easy to get started with your offerings
• Have clear documentation, and guidance on when teams should use you ( what your offering is really good at ) vs when they should not
• Have a robust support model that knows what they are doing ( many times, this is the only differentiator between 2 competing offerings )
• Focus on customer experience, and take regular feedback on how they are feeling while using your offerings
• Allow teams to consume competitive offerings, when they want, but try to understand why - and improve your product for the next consumer

All's well that ends well

If we have an internal platform that is Optional, yet being widely adopted within the enterprise, then it's a good time for the platform leadership to think about making their offering available in the external market, and serve external clients.

In that case, you actually end up moving from a cost center ( internal platforms need a part of the shared IT budget to survive ) to a value center ( you can partner with your Tech Consulting teams and create a Go-To-Market strategy in the Platforms Provider space ).

The future is full of endless opportunities.