Products Are Functions

Ryan Singer argues that every product is, at its core, a function: a mapping from a user's current state to a desired one. The frame sounds abstract until you try to apply it — then it starts to dissolve the usual confusion between features and outcomes. A feature is a mechanism; the product is the function. Singer's writing has the same spare precision as his Shape Up work: no jargon, no ceremony, only the cleanest statement of the idea that can be made. Useful for anyone who has ever sat in a roadmap meeting and sensed that the participants were all talking about different things.