Why Platforms Must Be Products, Not Projects
It's not a set-and-forget thing. You need to nourish it. You need to take care of it.
(I tried to use AI to create an image of a “packaged product platform” 😅 )
In the previous article on becoming a product-minded engineer, we discussed the importance of thinking beyond just writing code and considering the broader impact of your work.
This product mindset is especially critical when it comes to building internal platforms.
Too often, organizations treat internal platforms as one-off projects with a defined start and end. Once the initial development is complete, the platform team moves on, leaving the platform to stagnate.
This project-centric approach leads to several issues:
Lack of user-centricity and empathy for developer needs
Fragmented tools developed in silos without a clear vision
Reactive work and frustration for platform teams
Underutilized platforms that fail to drive adoption and value
Sound familiar?
In the fast-paced world of software development, it's easy to fall into the trap of treating internal platforms as one-off projects. Teams rush to build a platform, launch it, and then move on to the next shiny thing.
This approach frequently leads to platforms that are underutilized, poorly maintained, and fail to deliver real value to the organization.
The solution? Treat your internal platform as a product, not a project.
As the folks at Humanitec put it, “Platform as a Product is the evolution of DevOps and Platform Engineering.” It's about applying product management skills to the development and operation of your internal platform.
🤔 What Does Platform as a Product Really Mean?
At its core, the platform as a product approach means treating your internal platform like you would any other software product. This includes:
Defining a clear product vision and strategy: Your platform needs a clear purpose. What problems does it solve for your developers and your organization? Why are you building it in the first place ?
Understanding your users: Understand your developer's needs and pain. What can your platform do to make their lives easier? After all, it's them who will use what you build.
Building a roadmap: Roadmaps sometimes suck, but your platform should be driven by the needs of your users, not just by technical considerations. You should plan for the user's needs.
Establishing metrics for success: How do you know that you are doing a good job ? Measure it. Adoption, satisfaction, and impact.
Continuously iterating and improving: Just remember that it's continuous work. User feedback is what will keep the train going.
🌟 The Benefits of a Platform as a Product Approach
Why is this good? Well, adopting a platform as a product mindset gets you some benefits, such as:
Increased adoption and satisfaction: By building a platform that developers love to use, you drive organic adoption. People will come to you. If it's good, why not use it ?
Greater agility and innovation: You have the power to increase innovation with your platform. You increase the speed of development for your peers. You allow new things to be built, faster.
Improved efficiency and consistency: You provide a standardized set of tools and workflows. Your platform reduces duplication and promotes best practices across teams.
Better alignment with business outcomes: By treating your platform as a product, you ensure that it delivers measurable value to the organization, not just to individual teams.
Making the Shift to Platform as a Product
Let's face it, it's not easy. You need to shift how you build and operate your internal platform. Maybe even change a bit of the culture inside your company.
The following steps are what I think works best to have a successful platform:
Establishing a dedicated platform team: Create a cross-functional team of engineers, product managers, and designers who are only focused on the platform.
Investing in user research and design: Continuously talk with your developers to understand their needs and involve them in the platform design process. You are building this for them.
Defining platform KPIs: Have clear metrics for platform adoption, satisfaction, and impact, and use them to guide your future decisions.
Don't forget marketing: Treat your platform launch and updates as you would a product launch. You may not like it, but you will have to do a little bit of marketing internally.
Teach the users: If you are using a new product for the first time, you would like to know how it works. Do the same for your platform.
🌍 Accelerating Innovation
As software continues to eat the world, the importance of internal platforms will only continue to grow. Organizations that treat their platforms as products will be best positioned to innovate, compete, and win.
Why ? Well, because they want to be more efficient and spend less money, of course. And spending less money on operations allows you to spend more money on innovation.
So if you're responsible for an internal platform, I encourage you to embrace the platform as a product mindset. It won't be easy. But if you manage to pull it off, developers will love you.
Put your developers at the center.
Continuously deliver value.
You'll build a platform that accelerates innovation.
And innovation if one of the things that keeps the world going.
Until Next Time 😎
Got thoughts? Questions? Just want to say hi? I'm all ears! You can find me on the professional network (LinkedIn) or the digital playground (X).
I'm always up for a chat and promise to get back to everyone. After all, the best part of writing is the conversations it starts.