People > Principles > Process > Product

The order in which you should prioritize

In technology companies, leaders spend a ton of time thinking about the product. We are often given product suggestions from friends, family, and even strangers. When we first arrive on a new team, we especially want to focus on the product. During the interviewing, onboarding, and even 90 day period, even if we use a framework like people, process, and technology, it still doesn’t keep us from wanting to focus on what changes to the product we want to make, i.e. what customer problems we want to solve. Despite this being most of our natural proclivity, I think it’s backwards. The order in which we should focus is people, principles, process, and then product. You have to get the people right first. Then you decide on the principles that you are going to follow, i.e. what is your team’s culture. Once those are established, you fix the processes. Then finally, once all of that groundwork is laid, you can get down to fixing the product. Today, I want to walk through why I think this order is the correct way to approach situations, especially when we start new roles, start new initiatives, or need to pivot to something new.

When leaders join a new team, the gravitational pull is almost always toward the product. It’s natural, the product is visible, tangible, and often where the most immediate feedback comes from. You might hear friends, family, and colleagues sharing ideas for new features. You might see bugs that seem like low-hanging fruit, or gaps in the roadmap that spark your creativity. It’s tempting to jump in and fix those things right away, after all, it feels like the fastest way to make your mark.

Imagine arriving on day one to a flood of feature requests: “We need dark mode,” says a friend who uses the app at night. “Add this button here,” suggests a new hire. Even strangers at conferences are eager to pitch their ideas. You might also see a long list of bugs that seem to need squashing, small tweaks that feel like they’ll have an outsized impact. And if you’re an experienced product leader, your instinct is to dive right in: fixing, building, and polishing…solving customer problems.

But while these instincts are well-intentioned, they often miss the mark. Quick fixes and roadmap tweaks can create an illusion of progress, but without the right foundation, they rarely translate into lasting impact.

It’s like trying to fix a car. If you’re working on a mass-produced commuter car, sure, you can get away with quick fixes: replacing a worn-out part or adjusting a setting might be enough to keep it running. But if you’re aiming to compete in Formula 1, it’s a whole different story. The car is only as good as the people who drive it, tune it, and maintain it under pressure. Even the fastest car in the world will falter if the driver can’t handle it, or if the pit crew can’t execute a flawless pit stop. In a high-performing environment, the human element, the people and how they work together, is everything. Without that, the best technology is wasted potential.

This same principle applies to teams building technology products. It’s not just about slapping on new features or fixing obvious bugs. If the team isn’t aligned, if trust is shaky, or if the processes are broken, those tweaks won’t stick. Just like in Formula 1, the best performance starts with the people, and that’s where our focus should be.

People

If a Formula 1 team prioritizes the car over the crew, no amount of engineering genius will bring home the championship. It’s the same with product teams. Before you start tweaking the roadmap or refining your processes, you need to invest in the people.

People set the tone for everything else. The best principles and the most elegant processes don’t matter if you don’t have the right team to bring them to life. At the heart of every successful product is a group of individuals who trust each other, collaborate well, and share a common purpose. When that’s in place, ideas flow freely, challenges are met with creativity, and the product naturally improves as a result.

Conversely, I’ve seen teams with brilliant product ideas fall short because they neglected the people piece. A leader might have a clear vision, but if the team is siloed, mistrustful, or burned out, that vision rarely translates into real results. Features get built, but no one is excited about them. Bugs get fixed, but morale suffers. It’s like planting seeds in rocky soil, without the right environment, even the best ideas wither.

That’s why people come first. When you get the team right, everything else, the principles, the processes, the product, has a fighting chance. It might feel slower at first, but it pays off in the long run. Because no matter how smart your roadmap or how shiny your product, it’s the people who build it that determine whether it will thrive.

Principles

Once you have the right people in place, the next step is to define the principles that will guide how those people work together and make decisions. Think of principles as the shared compass for your team, providing clarity and consistency in an environment that’s often anything but predictable.

Principles give your team a framework for decision-making, especially when the path forward isn’t obvious. They’re the answer to questions like: “How do we prioritize speed versus quality?” or “What trade-offs are we willing to make for the customer experience?” Without them, even the best people can find themselves working at cross purposes, pulling in different directions and diluting the team’s efforts.

I’ve seen the power of principles firsthand. I’ve seen it when leaders were clear from day one: “We build for the customer first, even if it hurts profits in the short term.” This principle shaped everything, from how they scoped features to how they responded to user feedback. It gave the team a lens for every tough call, and it meant that even when deadlines were tight or pressure was high, the product always stayed true to what mattered most: serving real users.

In contrast, I’ve also seen what happens when principles are missing. The team had no shared view on what to prioritize. As a result, they vacillated between approaches. Talent wasn’t the problem, they had brilliant engineers. The problem was that without clear principles, every decision felt like reinventing the wheel.

Principles don’t have to be long or complex. Some of the best ones are short and powerful: “Default to transparency,” “Move fast and learn,” “Disagree and commit.” The point isn’t to cover every scenario but to anchor the team in shared values, so that when the path forward gets murky, they have something to steer by.

When you’re starting something new, a role, an initiative, or a major pivot, defining and aligning on these principles is essential. They keep your team focused and resilient, even when things get messy. And when the principles are clear, your people can make decisions with confidence, knowing they’re all pulling in the same direction.

Process

Once you have the right people and principles, processes are the final piece that turns good ideas into repeatable success. This is where the Product Operating Model becomes so important. This is the scaffolding that keeps a team working smoothly, focused on solving customer problems and moving business metrics.

A friend of mine once said about choosing a cloud provider, “If we follow the right process, we’ll pick the right vendor.” He was exactly right, good processes don’t guarantee the perfect outcome, but they do make it far more likely. They bring discipline and clarity, helping teams navigate tough decisions and stay aligned even when the path is uncertain.

Too little process, and you have chaos; too much, and you smother creativity. The trick is to find the sweet spot: enough structure to keep everyone moving in the same direction, but enough flexibility to allow for learning and adaptation. Whether it’s a lightweight daily standup or a rigorous code review, the point isn’t to create bureaucracy, it’s to create a shared rhythm that supports the people and the principles already in place.

When processes are tuned just right, they fade into the background, a quiet but powerful enabler of trust, focus, and long-term success.

Product

With people, principles, and processes in place, it’s finally time to turn your attention to the product. This is the stage that many of us are itching to reach, where ideas become features, and roadmaps turn into real experiences for customers.

But now, the difference is that you’re not just making changes in a vacuum. You’re working with a team that trusts each other, guided by shared values, and supported by processes that turn those values into action. The result? Product decisions that stick and resonate, rather than short-term fixes that get undone a month later.

This is the payoff for the foundational work you’ve done. Product improvements now draw on the full strength of the team: engineers, designers, and stakeholders who are aligned and empowered. It’s no longer about chasing the next shiny feature, it’s about making deliberate changes that move the needle for your customers.

I’ve seen leaders skip straight to the product, hoping that a flashy new feature will fix deeper issues. It never does. They end up trapped in a cycle of iteration, small wins that feel like progress but never address the root problems. But when you build on a foundation of people, principles, and process, product improvements become more than surface-level tweaks. They’re real, sustainable shifts that stand the test of time.

In the end, great products are the byproduct of great teams, clear values, and thoughtful execution. That’s why the product comes last, because when everything else is working, it’s the natural outcome.

Conclusion

It’s easy to get swept up in the excitement of the product, the features, the roadmap, the fixes. But true, lasting progress starts earlier: with people, principles, and process. Each step builds on the next, creating a foundation that not only supports your product but magnifies its impact.

So if you’re stepping into a new role, pivoting an existing team, or launching a new initiative, resist the urge to jump straight into product tweaks. Instead, start by investing in your team, who they are and how they work together. Define the principles that will guide you, and put the right processes in place to make those principles real. Only then turn your focus to the product.

I encourage you to pause today and ask yourself: Where are you starting? And more importantly, what would happen if you started with people first? Take the time to build that foundation, and watch how everything else, including the product, begins to thrive.