Obstacles define their path to success.
“But we finished our part, so we should get credit.”
I hear statements such as this from product teams who are stuck.
- Stuck delivering task after task with no clear goal.
- Stuck trying to stay busy only on things they can control.
- Stuck in a system they feel can’t be changed.
- Stuck in a narrow lane of specialty.
They have not yet made the shift to becoming unstoppable.
Do these blockers sound familiar to your team? I suspect they do, as nine times out of ten, I find teams in these rough waters, treading fast to stay afloat.
- They are in a task factory.
- They move a lot but go nowhere.
- They follow the rules even if the guardrails no longer apply.
- They have a job to do, not a customer to delight.
Product teams: this is not your destiny.
In my career, I have worked with hundreds of teams to build patterns to become unstuck. To take control. To become unstoppable.
The result?
- Purposeful movement toward an inspiring goal.
- Steady, smooth flow of value to customers and stakeholders.
- Continuous improvement toward a moving target of perfection.
- Pride from collaborating as a team to deliver remarkable outcomes.
The patterns of these teams can be boiled down to 9 barrier-destroying traits.
You can find them below.
This year, I’ve committed my focus to a concept called Lean Leverage, as described in my inaugural 2024 post. Each article I craft this year, including this one (the 8th in the series), will focus on an aspect of Lean Leverage. Enjoy and stay tuned for many ways to do more with less.
The 9 Rare Traits of Unstoppable Product Teams
What does it mean to be unstoppable?
The easy path is an illusion.
This is especially true in product development. Instead, we must expect the crooked path, littered with barriers to our progress. This is the only certainty when it comes to product.
A shift in our mindset helps.
“The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way.”
—Marcus Aurelius
We can heed the advice of Marcus Aurelius, penned almost 2000 years ago in his personal journal.
The path to peak product success is facing and breaking through obstacles, not avoiding them.
Now, let’s get to the traits of product teams that make this a reality.
Trait 1: They are actively backed by an enabling, involved leader.
Permission to take ownership is foundational.
This is born via an enabling, engaged leader who builds trust and activates team autonomy.
Product barriers are numerous and highly contextual. Their swift removal requires decentralized control. And being closest to the work, the team is best equipped to solve most blockers.
You need a leader:
- who makes it safe to do the right thing.
- who democratizes problem-solving.
- who unleashes autonomous innovation and improvement.
- who co-creates complex solutions with the team.
- who removes obstacles out of the team’s control.
When leaders like this show up, no obstacle is a barrier.
Trait 2: They aren’t concerned with vanity metrics.
Task completion is a means to the end, not the end itself.
Teams who have transcended to an unstoppable state are not concerned with output. They care about the value achieved by their output. Plan versus actual does not matter if the work does not ultimately solve a problem.
Getting credit for work completed is not a goal (velocity, points, estimated vs. actual, etc.).
The only measure of success is winning as a team:
- Delighting customers.
- Achieving business impact sooner.
- Moving at a sustainable pace.
- Delivering with uncompromising quality.
Checkboxes are on value attained, not tasks; no partial credit allowed.
Trait 3: They work as a team, not as individuals.
Staying in lanes is for cars, not team members.
A team that can’t be stopped has a diverse, multifaceted set of members who work together rather than solo. An obstacle for one member is another member’s special skill. There is might in the pooled capabilities of the team.
You will never hear, “That’s not my job,” on these teams; instead, you will hear, “How can I help?”
Collaborative teamwork solves many traditional hurdles:
- Increased innovation for complex, uncertain problems.
- Knowing whom to contact to break through bottlenecks.
- Having members available to solve the problem when it arises.
- Gaining access to all team member knowledge for better decisions.
- Covering for fallen (sick, tired, or absent) teammates.
- Pollinating knowledge across members.
No obstacle can withstand a collaborative team of generalizing specialists.
Trait 4: They have a relentless pursuit of peak customer outcomes.
Claiming victory requires a delighted customer.
Achieving a desired customer outcome drives all action by unstoppable teams. They don’t stop at a working feature. They don’t stop at a usable feature. They don’t stop at a used feature.
They can only rest when the feature is deemed useful by a customer. Full stop.
They care about:
- Do users start using what we deliver?
- Do users keep using what we deliver?
- What are users saying about it?
- What are users telling others about it?
- Are we seeing the desired business impact being realized?
- How early do we start seeing business impact?
- Do we know sooner that our solutions are not making an impact?
No obstacle along the path to answering these questions has a chance with the customer in focus.
Trait 5: They aim to finish what they start, not stay busy.
Idle work is the problem, not idle team members.
Keeping the work flowing to a valuable state is priority one. Unstoppable teams don’t move on to something else when they are blocked. Whatever stops the flow gets the focus.
These teams are savvy in their ability to:
- break internal or external dependencies through work-arounds or doing the work themselves.
- expedite approval via their network of contacts who know how to navigate the system.
- cut through red tape by involving approvers before and during the work.
- eliminate or automate repeat bottlenecks.
Focused teams aren’t busy for busy’s sake; they stay busy on obstacles to keep work flowing.
Trait 6: They don’t have a blocked state in their workflow.
A big pile of blocked items creates a value traffic jam.
Teams who keep value flowing don’t need a blocked state in their workflow. The blocker does not live long enough. Unstoppable teams stop-the-line and fix the blocker; no need to log it.
No obstacle is:
- saved for later.
- somebody else’s problem.
- avoided because it is hard.
- delayed waiting on a team member who is working on something else.
- waiting for permission to be removed.
Tracking blockers is for teams who delay value, not unstoppable teams.
Trait 7: They have the courage to change the status quo.
Safety is good; safety plus courage is powerful.
Enabling leaders provide the safety. Unstoppable teams couple safety with courage to confront and improve the system. It takes courage to break the norms and act differently.
These teams get better by:
- improving even when things are going well.
- knowing when to reset the system foundation versus change incrementally.
- acting first to solve the problem instead of seeking permission.
- inspecting and adapting daily.
Change is no barrier for unstoppable teams.
Trait 8: They start in order to learn.
Complexity and uncertainty are no match for evidence from action.
Unstoppable teams don’t rely on big upfront plans and details. They don’t try to figure out every possibility up front. Instead of endless debate on the best path, they choose to take the first step, learn, and take another step.
Their learning accelerates by:
- finding cheap and fast ways to remove uncertainty.
- trying two competing options and evaluating the outcome.
- starting simple and adding complexity only as needed.
- starting from a humble state of, “We don’t know,” instead of, “We know..”
When knowledge is the obstacle, starting, learning, and iterating makes teams unstoppable.
Trait 9: They blur traditional role boundaries.
The typical boundaries of responsibility and authority don’t enable value flow.
Unstoppable teams take a stance of collective ownership. They assume concept-to-cash delivery of solutions. They are magnets of responsibility and autonomy.
Their responsibility is vast:
- They discover the problems that need solving.
- They experiment with solutions to find the right fit.
- They self-manage.
- They acquire all capabilities to own end-to-end delivery.
- They ensure the quality of what they build.
- They gather feedback and iterate.
Unstoppable teams have unbounded responsibility.
I hope these traits inspire your team to become unstoppable on your product journey.
When you face an obstacle, you face the unknown.
At the edge of your knowledge, you will find purpose and meaning as a team.
Good luck as you face your barriers and forge your unique path.
THANK YOU!
I hope you found this post useful.
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Related Posts
You can read further on removing your obstacles below:
Todd Lankford unlocks Lean Leverage in organizations to cultivate powerful, engaged product teams who maximize outcomes and impact.
His articles share his experiences and learnings along the way. Join the mailing list to get them in your inbox.