The Pragmatic Framework^™

What problem does the market have, and how do we know?

Market problems are the pains, needs and desired outcomes that lead people to buy or use a product. They are measurable and observable, and they can be qualitative or quantitative. Finding them is the foundation for everything else in the Framework.

What will this product be known for, and what will we say no to?

Product strategy sets the long-term direction for your product: the value it will create, the problems it will solve and the choices that guide decisions over time. It gives your roadmap, portfolio and business plan a shared point of reference.

What can we do that others can't easily copy?

Distinctive competencies define what makes your organization exceptional in its market. These strengths must reflect excellence, be unmatched in your market and resist replication. They differ from core competencies, which describe what you do well but others can also do.

Why did recent evaluators buy from us, or not?

Win/loss analysis is the process of understanding why recent evaluators did or didn't buy from you. It helps you identify your real competitors, see how buyers judge your pricing and features, understand how they make decisions, and assess how well sales and marketing are working.

What else could buyers use instead, including doing nothing?

The competitive landscape includes every alternative your buyers have: competing products, substitutes, internal workarounds and the option to do nothing. Understanding it helps you differentiate, shorten sales cycles, protect retention and anticipate threats and opportunities.

Which segment is most likely to buy, and is it big enough?

Market definition identifies the segments most likely to buy and use your product. It maps the needs of potential markets, analyzes which segments are viable, and confirms they're large enough to sustain current and future business. Even products that sell broadly perform better when the team knows its target market.

How will people find, buy and get the product?

Distribution strategy is your plan for how the product reaches the people who buy and use it: how it's accessed, purchased, delivered and supported. Options include selling direct, selling through partners, or a mix, and the right choice depends on how your market prefers to buy, receive and use products like yours. For internal products, it's how teams get access and how the rollout happens.

How do our offers fit together, and where should we invest?

Your product portfolio includes all the products, services and offers that solve market problems. Managing the portfolio like a product, with its own plan and positioning, frees resources, reduces risk, simplifies selling and helps you decide where to invest.

Which outcomes come next, and in what order?

A product roadmap is a visual plan of the product's direction and priorities over time. It communicates strategy, secures buy-in and guides execution. Common types include strategy, portfolio, release, feature and theme-based roadmaps.

Why is this worth funding?

A product business plan justifies a new product or release by laying out its purpose, potential and risks. It helps leadership decide which projects to fund, delay or stop. Formats vary, but every plan should document the market problems the product addresses and explain why your organization is well suited to solve them.

How will we capture the value we create?

Pricing assigns monetary value to your product, whether as a one-time fee, a subscription or a usage-based model. It affects revenue, reflects value and shapes customer expectations. For internal products, the same thinking applies to funding, cost allocation and return on investment.

Is building it ourselves the best path?

When organizations want to expand, they can buy another business or product, build something new, or partner with another company. Product teams face the same choice when solving market problems, and while the decision needs input from several roles, product leaders should guide it based on market needs.

Is the product delivering the results the business expected?

Business outcomes describe how the product contributes to results such as revenue, profit, margin, efficiency, cost reduction and return on investment. Tracking them shows whether the product is doing what the business plan said it would.

Which indicators tell us early whether this is working?

Measurement defines the indicators that show whether your product, strategy and go-to-market work are producing the intended outcomes. It sets what you'll track and how, so decisions rest on evidence.

Who is this for, and why is it the right choice?

Positioning defines how your product solves market problems for a specific audience and why it's the right choice. It keeps engineering, marketing and sales consistent and makes the product's value clear to different buyer types. Positioning should happen early and focus on the buyer's needs.

How do buyers move from a need to a decision?

The buyer journey maps how buyers, sponsors and approvers move from recognizing a need to making a decision, including their questions, friction points and moments of influence. For internal products, the journey belongs to the stakeholders who approve and fund the work.

Who makes or influences the purchase decision?

Buyer personas are profiles of the people who make or influence the purchase decision, including sponsors, approvers and influencers. They describe goals, concerns, authority and success criteria.

Who uses the product, and what do they need to get done?

User personas are profiles of the people who use your product. Users often don't make the purchase decision, but their workflows, needs, context and behavior determine whether the product succeeds.

What problem must the team solve, for whom, and how often does it happen?

Requirements give teams the context, intent, constraints and priorities they need to design and build the right solution. A good requirement describes the market problem: who has it, what it is and how often it happens, without prescribing a solution.

Which ideas hold up when we test them with users?

Ideation explores and shapes possible solutions before your team commits to full delivery. It turns market problems and user insight into concepts, prototypes and experiments you can test.

Are priorities, responsibilities and trade-offs clear to everyone involved?

Stakeholder management builds and keeps shared clarity on priorities, decisions, timing, responsibilities and trade-offs across leaders, teams and partners. It builds trust, keeps people informed and reduces risk.

How will we reach the market this year?

A marketing plan sets out how you'll introduce your product to potential customers within a set time frame. It covers tactics such as content, social media, PR, events, sales and advertising, and it's usually built for a year and revisited regularly.

Where will new revenue or new users come from?

Growth covers the programs and experiments that bring in new revenue, new users and expanded use. For commercial products it's often expressed as revenue growth over time; for internal products it's broader adoption across the organization.

Why do customers stay, and why do they leave?

Retention is the work of keeping customers and deepening the value they get over time, through renewal, continued use, expansion and repeat engagement. When teams track it in revenue terms, net revenue retention above 100% means expansion from existing customers outweighs revenue lost to churn and downgrades.

Are our teams, systems and customers ready?

A launch introduces a product or release to the market. Success depends on timing, readiness and meeting market needs, so make sure teams, systems, content, support and measures are in place before you go.

Do internal teams share the same picture of the audience and the value?

Organizational alignment keeps sales, customer success, support, operations and other internal teams working toward shared goals. Each team needs the same understanding of the audience, the value proposition, its responsibilities and the expected outcomes.

Does the right audience know the problem and our solution?

Awareness is the first step in the buying process: helping the right audiences recognize the problem, your company and your solution. Without it, people can't choose your product because they don't know it exists.

What moves people from interest to evaluation and trial?

Engagement moves people from initial awareness to active interest, evaluation, trial and early use. It keeps your product in view through long or complex buying cycles.

How do customers judge their experience with the product and their relationship with us?

Customer satisfaction is customers' own evaluation of their experience with the product and their relationship with your organization after purchase, adoption or continued use. It covers satisfaction, trust and the health of that relationship. Customer Value Realization asks a different question: whether customers achieved the outcomes they expected.

Do customers and users start using the product in meaningful ways, and do they keep using it?

Adoption covers the onboarding, activation and behavior change that lead customers and end users to begin meaningful use of a product and keep using it. A product delivers value only when people use it.

What do buyers and users need to read, watch or hear to decide and succeed?

Content includes the materials that communicate value, guide decisions and support use: blog posts, videos, webinars, white papers, guides and more. Good content builds trust and helps people at every stage of the buying and adoption process.

Do teams have the tools to sell and support the product consistently?

Assets are the practical tools teams use to sell, support and explain the product: case studies, presentations, demos, ROI calculators, templates, messaging guides and playbooks.

Can our partners and channels position, sell and support it?

Channel support equips partners, resellers, service providers and adjacent teams with the knowledge and materials they need to position, sell, deliver and support your product.

What will break as demand grows?

Scaling expands the product's reach, reliability and efficiency as adoption, complexity or demand grows. What worked for the first customers often needs to change as volume increases.

Which one-offs are worth making, and which point to a missing capability?

Exceptions are the non-standard requests, edge cases, policy exceptions and custom work that come up once a product is in the market. Handling them well keeps customers satisfied without undermining strategy or consistency.

Who owns a critical issue, and what do we learn from it?

Escalations are the critical issues, risks and stakeholder concerns that need fast, coordinated action. Clear ownership and response paths keep them from becoming crises.

Did customers get the outcome they bought the product for?

Customer value realization asks whether customers achieved the outcome they bought or adopted the product for. It looks at results from the customer's side.