You are the expert. Don’t hand over product development to those you’re supposed to be serving.
Think of a top restaurant. Diners don’t write the menu—and they certainly don’t wander into the kitchen to instruct the chef. Why? Because left to our own devices, most of us would just make spaghetti bolognese. Not because it’s the most exciting dish, but because it’s what we know how to do.
Customers will only ask for what they see around them. They don’t envision possibilities beyond their expertise—and why should they? It’s not their domain.
The chef’s role is to listen—understand whether we crave comfort, freshness, or surprise—then use their craft to design something better than we could ever imagine. They see ingredients, techniques, and flavor combinations we don’t even know exist.
The same principle applies to product development. Customers will describe their pain points, but they’ll inevitably frame solutions through the narrow lens of familiar tools and approaches. If you build only what’s explicitly requested, you’re serving yesterday’s solutions to tomorrow’s problems.
As product leaders, we need to dig deeper:
Why is this request being made?
What is the underlying need they can’t articulate?
How can we solve this in ways they haven’t considered?
This is how you deliver genuinely innovative solutions that don’t just satisfy customers but advance them into possibilities they didn’t know they needed.
Just as diners don’t storm restaurant kitchens with recipe suggestions, customers shouldn’t drive your product roadmap. Listen to their hunger, but let your expertise craft the feast.
Great chefs don’t just cook meals—they design experiences. As product leaders, that’s exactly what we should be doing too.
