In a B2B (business-to-business) context you are confronted with different people / departments for the various interactions with your company such as choosing and evaluating a product, buying a product, using a product, etc. Depending on the motivation / role / perspective you might distinguish between

• Doer (job performer): the person responsible for hands-on operation and interaction with your product.
• Chooser: the person responsible for evaluating and selecting products or services for their organization
• User Administrator: the person responsible for managing the access, permissions, and overall user experience for a product or service within an organization
• Compliance Officer: the person responsible that the organization’s use of third-party services adheres to regulatory requirements, internal policies, and industry standards.
• Etc.

An end user is a person using your product or service and is the main user group you will encounter in a B2C (business-to-consumer) context. The person using your product or service will also be the person choosing and buying your product.

Although the term user refers to a specific person, it includes also different behaviors and motivations of this person towards your product or service in varying situations.

A term coined by Geoffrey A. Moore that describes that a technology has gained acceptance in multiple niche-markets. Wherever one niche adopts, adjacent niches become more likely to adapt as well. As the product grows in multiple niche markets, it also becomes more widely known but not yet adopted to the general public.

Moore, Geoffrey A. (2006): Dealing with Darwin. How great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution., West Sussex: Capstone, p.17

Unlike physical products, digital products are intangible, infinitely replicable, and distributed instantly at marginal cost. They evolve continuously, rely on data and algorithms, and can for example generate additional value through network effects.

Dual-track development means that the whole product team works in parallel on discovery and delivery. Discovery is an essential part of product development and the whole product team is responsible for output and outcomes.

Of course, not all engineers will be doing user research. Not all engineers will align with stakeholders all the time and designers and analysts will not be able to write high quality code. Mixing all of this would result in bad code quality and be highly inefficient. But the whole team is involved in discovering new features in the same way as the whole team is involved in delivering discovered features.

A term coined by Geoffrey A. Moore that describes that a technology has been adopted widely and is likely to persist for some time. Customers expect to see continuous offering improvements.

Moore, Geoffrey A. (2006): Dealing with Darwin. How great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution., West Sussex: Capstone, p.17

• Functional requirements describe what a digital product must do
• Non-functional requirements (NFR) or quality attributes describe how well it must do it

This includes factors such as performance, reliability, scalability, testability, etc.

A user story usually handles both.

Example:

As a user, I can upload a document to attach it to my profile

Functional – what the system does:

• Allowed formats: PDF, PNG
• Upload capability in the user interface

Non-functional – how the system does it:

• Upload completes < 3 seconds (It does not describe a new capability, it describes how fast the upload must be)
• Maximum file size: 20 MB (It is not a behavior but a boundary condition)
• 500 concurrent uploads supported (It is not a feature but a scalability requirement)
• Audit log recorded (It is not a feature but defines how internal events must be recorded)

The Product (Maturity) Life Cycle describes the time a product is available to users in a linear way. It covers how the product evolves from introduction to widespread adoption and ultimately to decline or reinvention.

1. Introduction The product enters the market, adoption is low, and the team focuses on validation, onboarding, and early adoption.
2. Growth The product gains traction, usage accelerates, and the team invests in scaling, reliability, and feature expansion.
3. Maturity Growth stabilizes, the product is widely adopted, and optimization becomes the focus.
4. Saturation he market becomes crowded, demand plateaus, and competitive pressure peaks.
5. Decline Usage and relevance decrease as customer needs shift or alternatives emerge.
6. Afterlife The product is retired, repurposed, or integrated into successor offerings.

Product strategy connects the product vision with actionable steps. While the vision defines the destination, strategy outlines how you will get there. It translates the why and what of the vision into the how: the choices, priorities, and paths your team will take to move towards that vision.

Product Thinking is a holistic approach that aims to maximize outcome while minimizing output, ensuring teams create real user and business value rather than simply shipping features. It takes an outside‑in perspective and continuously learning what truly drives impact. Sense, Focus, Discover, and Deliver form a continuous loop: first you understand users, then align opportunities with strategy, then validate assumptions, and finally scale what works.

Lean and Agile are help us with iteration and feedback loops to develop products faster. However, it is not enough to know how to move, we must also understand where we are going.

A clear product vision provides that direction. It defines the final destination, offers orientation, and keeps the team focused on what truly matters. Progress is measured by how much closer we get to this destination.

In other words, your product is the means to create change. The vision articulates the aspirational change the product will bring to the world.

A term coined by Geoffrey A. Moore that describes that a technology has proved its usefulness in niche markets, and a killer app has emerged, that makes it highly attractive to a mass market. Almost overnight the technology becomes perceived as necessary and standard.

Moore, Geoffrey A. (2006): Dealing with Darwin. How great companies innovate at every phase of their evolution., West Sussex: Capstone, p.17

Usability is a measure of how well a user can use a product in a specific context to achieve a certain goal.

• Learnability is how easy it is to learn and to use a product and complete a task when interacting with the software for the first time.
• Efficiency is how quickly a user can perform his task.
• Effectiveness is how accurately users can complete their tasks.
• Memorability is how easily a user can perform his task when he returns to the product after some time.
• Culture is how logically the product is organized to meet the cultural context or specific customs of the users.
• Error tolerance is how often errors occur and how they impact the job the user wants to get done.