Maturity Isn’t a Straight Line

Recently, I’ve made more of an effort to network.?For me, like for many, it takes a conscious focus, and I forget at times how cool it is to meet new people (even virtually) and grow your own point of view in the process.?I’ve talked to several product people, more specifically platform product people.?At many organizations these leaders play a unique role within the product team.?The ability to hear their stories has been priceless to me on my own journey.?It’s so easy to want to hide that which didn’t work, but in collectively sharing wisdom, the disciple of managing a platform matures for all of us.?And I so appreciate the transparency (… humor & empathy) we shared, and the genuine connection in how managing a platform is just a little bit different.

For all you platform product folks out there trying to figure it out, here is a summary of what I learned…?Grateful to those willing to share their stories with me.

1)?????Making the simple, complex is easy.?But making the complex, simple is incredibly challenging.??And making the complex simple is at the heart of platform work.?Your goal (and ultimately the platform promise) is making the adoption of a platform service easier than building something else.?Easier said than done in moments but incredibly important. The payoff of broad adoption is fueling faster and more consistent application availability.

2)?????Managing a platform is not just about creating services and frameworks, it is about creating a vision across many stakeholders.?This huge undertaking is a journey.?Expect push back, a-ha moments, failure and success.?Lead with a servant’s heart and an eye to change.

3)?????Platforms haven’t been around as long as software.?Experiment.?Challenge assumptions.?Try.?Fail.?Keep progressing the path.?Maturity isn’t a straight line in this case.?Yet progress is so much better than waiting for the perfect answer.

4)?????It’s hard at first to enable, but not own a market or a software solution. You have to love the magic of surrendering to a bigger, more intensive purpose.?Platform is the foundation.?It’s the enabler.?Sometimes you don’t 'see' the foundation.?But it’s always there critically reinforcing the bigger picture.?

5)?????'Know your customer' takes on a different meaning.?Your customer isn’t the same end user you may be familiar with...?It is more likely your peers in product management and development who will be adopting the services you create.?Or developer customers using them to create integrations and extensions.?Embrace these customers with the same intense focus on solving problems.

6)?????And my personal favorite, a solid path to platform starts with a plan.?The insanely successful path to platform understands that the plan needs to be intentionally agile and flexible.?You will learn as much on this journey as you are willing to take in. Become very, very resilient. Apply knowledge wisely. And have a little fun in the journey of transformation.