Internal Product Teams
Internal Product Teams are responsible for the delivery of services, and ideally products, to Stream Teams to enable them to focus on delivering product features efficiently and effectively.
Purpose
The purpose of internal product teams is to organize and manage the delivery of services that streamline the operations of Stream Teams in order to achieve the goals and objectives of the ecosystem.
Context
Industry Context
There are many tasks that need to be completed to bring a product or service to market. These back-office functions are essential to the success of the product but are not directly involved in the development of the product itself. These are typically structured as standalone departments that occasionally interact with product teams such as finance, legal, and HR. While they don't directly contribute to the product, they are essential to the success of the product.
ZeroBlockers Context
Internal departments are set up for the efficient delivery of their particular tasks. The functional structure prioritizes the efficiency of delivery at the expense of reactivity. This means that when Stream Teams interact with these teams there is often a mismatch in priorities and expectations. The slow and unpredictable response times can be a blocker to quick delivery.
ZeroBlockers addresses this problem by shifting the focus of the internal departments from being delivery-focused to being customer-focused. The Stream Teams are the customers of the internal departments, so in the same way that a Product Team identifies customer pain points, designs experiments to test solutions to those pain points, the internal departments should be doing the same. That is why they are branded as Internal Product Teams in the ZeroBlockers framework: the goal should be the productization of their services to make them more predictable and easier to integrate.
In addition to traditional internal departments, Internal Product Teams also encompass dedicated product teams such as a technical platform team or a design system team where the customer is internal to the organization.
Methods
| Method | Description | Benefits |
|---|---|---|
| Funding Internal Products | Allocating budgets for the creation and maintenance of internal products. | Ensures necessary resources are available for product success. |
| Incentivizing Productization | Encouraging the productization of services to enhance efficiency and effectiveness. | Streamlines the delivery of support services to Stream Teams. |
| Internal Pricing | Establishing internal pricing mechanisms for Internal Product Team services. | Ensures that Internal Product Teams remain customer-focused and accountable. |
| Reviewing Internal Product Funding | Regular reviews of funding allocations to align with changing market conditions. | Maintains alignment of product strategy with market realities. |
Anti-patterns
- Underfunded Teams: Not allocating sufficient resources to Enabling Teams, leading to poor quality and slow progress.
- Irregular Reviews: Not regularly reviewing Enabling Team funding and team structure, leading to misalignment with market conditions.