Product and strategy
Ladder of needs
Also called What, how, why ladder
Climb from what your product does, to how it does it, to why it matters, to find a vision the team can sell and a way to sort the roadmap.
- Time30 to 60 minutes
- People2 to 8 people
- Steps4
What it's for
Teams describe their product by its features, which is the bottom rung. The ladder asks you to climb: what job does the product do, how does it do that job, and why does that matter to the people using it? The top rung is the vision.
Once the ladder is up, every roadmap idea can be sorted by the rung it serves: a new what, a better how, or something that delivers more of the why. A roadmap full of new whats is often a product losing its focus.
How to run it
What10 min
Start at the bottom: the job the product does for people.
How10 min
How the product does that job, better or differently from the alternatives.
Why10 min
Why that matters to the people using it. Keep asking why until the answer is about their lives, not your product.
Sort the roadmap15 min
Place each roadmap idea beside the rung it serves.
Tips
- The why should still be true if your product disappeared. It's about the people, not the product.
- Read the finished ladder from the top down as a pitch. If it sounds flat, the why isn't there yet.
Where it comes from
Described by product leader Kit Ulrich in 2018, combining Clayton Christensen's jobs to be done with Simon Sinek's idea of starting with why.
Pairs well with
Product vision board
Capture a product's vision, target group, needs, key features and business goals on one board the whole team can point to.
Jobs to be done canvas
Describe the job a customer is trying to get done, the stages they go through, and the outcomes they use to judge whether it went well.
Working backwards press release
Write the press release and FAQ for a product before building it, so the team agrees on the customer and the benefit first.