Log in or create a free Rosenverse account to watch this video.
Log in Create free account100s of community videos are available to free members. Conference talks are generally available to Gold members.
Whole Product Thinking: Expanding beyond problem and solution space thinking
Summary
Join us for this session with Sean McKay, Founder, Product Strategy & Design Consultant at Whole Product Thinking. Why is it so hard to align everyone so we can deliver products that our customers love? It’s a question that will steal your soul (and your job) if you let it. I believe it’s more important now than ever that we transcend the nagging industry debates, power struggles, and process wars that are blocking us all from doing our best work for our customers. In this session, I’ll share a new “Whole Product Thinking” framework I’ve been developing. It’s intended to help structure conversations and align teams around the fundamental concepts needed to deliver human-centered products that are meaningful to users and effective for business. My approach centers on the 'what' and 'why,' deliberately separating the 'how' to allow organizations the freedom to choose approaches and methods that align with their unique contexts, development philosophies, and company culture.
Key Insights
-
•
Whole product thinking integrates business, problem, and reality spaces for holistic product delivery.
-
•
Shared language and alignment documents help teams overcome communication silos and contradictory perspectives.
-
•
Decision culture and business stage significantly impact how product strategy and investments should be approached.
-
•
Customer outcomes and business impacts must be simultaneously considered for successful products.
-
•
Continuous understanding blends strategic exploration and tactical evaluation to maintain customer connections.
-
•
Product operations—including research ops, design ops, data ops, and customer success ops—are critical as binding infrastructure.
-
•
Delivery is as important as design and development, emphasizing incremental releases and deployment planning.
-
•
Design principles like accessibility and sustainability are folded into business values and solution design, not separate add-ons.
-
•
Avoid prescribing rigid roles; instead use the framework as a diagnostic tool to identify gaps and align cross-functional teams.
-
•
An experience vision acts as a north star, inspiring teams toward long-term customer-centric outcomes beyond fixed product features.
Notable Quotes
"Frameworks are the best because they help structure conversations and align teams."
"Everyone has a different context—teams, culture, and history—that shapes how they work and think."
"Is there good kung fu in everything? Every perspective has something to teach us."
"Outcomes is a word people use so much it's lost its meaning, so we need clarity around it."
"Business space includes vision, mission, market understanding, business model, and decision culture—not just product."
"Reality space focuses on customers’ mental models, appetite for change, and the broader solution ecosystem."
"Continuous understanding means both strategic and tactical research with strong customer connections."
"Delivery gets missed at the right time often; sequencing, deployment, and adoption planning are critical."
"Product operations serve as the binding agent to enable teams and processes to work seamlessly together."
"Experience vision is the north star describing what the customer’s world will be like after success."
Or choose a question:
More Videos
"Can you show me your thought process? That’s really critical as the ability to articulate themselves."
Adam Cutler Karen Pascoe Ian Swinson Susan WorthmanDiscussion
June 8, 2016
"It’s not enough to just see inputs at the altitude you’re working at; you need visibility into the inputs around you for proper context."
Ellie Krysl Jon FukudaPlanned Right. Managed Right. Designed Right.
June 6, 2023
"Two-thirds of our internal team had experienced a late or lost delivery, reflecting real customer frustration."
Anat Fintzi Rachel MinnicksDelivering at Scale: Making Traction with Resistant Partners
June 9, 2022
"Laura let out a sigh of relief and said, I don’t think I could ever recover the way that you did."
Randolph Duke IIWar Stories LIVE! Randy Duke II
March 30, 2020
"An ending occurs when the reality of your present moment shifts or changes all together."
Maria GiudiceEmpowering change: Reigniting purpose, passion and impact in research
March 13, 2025
"Trust was cultivated with design principles like clarity, efficiency, consistency, and beauty serving as a North Star."
Nalini P. KotamrajuAn Organizational Story: Salesforce Lightning Design System
June 9, 2016
"We have the responsibility to redistribute our power and include those who have a stake in the work we do."
Aaron Stienstra Lashanda HodgeLeveraging Civic Design to Advance Equity and Rebuild Trust in the US Federal Government
December 8, 2021
"A tabletop exercise is like we’re all on the same team building a plan, but a war game is competition against other teams."
Terry BuckmanWargaming (An Introduction)
August 10, 2023
"People make assumptions about what we can achieve through no fault of our own."
Jess GrecoClaiming your power: Practical tools for amplifying your unique voice
March 13, 2025
