Product & Engineering's Ability: Business and Technical Translation

In the life of a member of Product & Engineering, you typically have one foot in the P&E world and one foot in the business world of Lessonly.

This inherently means that you are absorbing information that is both technical and business-focused. This information needs to be translated in an easy-to-understand way for Lessonly team members and customers who are not necessarily proficient in business terms or technical terms.

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability with only a small amount of guidance

You make small contributions yourself with clear directions by following existing conventions. For example:

• Translating updates on your squad's progress of projects in the weekly product update lesson that makes sense for our core audience
• Taking a complex backend bug and explaining the impact in an understandable way to non-technical stakeholders
• Updating our ProductBoard roadmap with the expected potholes that a sales rep may run into when selling the feature being launched

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability, with no assistance as well as being a trusted active or passive mentor to others

You make major contributions yourself, fill in missing details, and impact some of those around you. For example:

• Reviewing your peers Productboard roadmap cards and providing feedback on how we can improve the Why behind an investment
• In each epic, we specify our intended business outcome (or why the world will be different) once delivery is done

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to multiple squads when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can employ this ability as well as being considered an expert within this discipline

You consistently make the entire team more effective in this domain. For example:

• Leading the charge in facilitating the review and improvement of our Weekly Product Update lesson
• Creating a standard way in which we communicate our investments to squad members that showcases the intended business impact
• Doing a company wide-demo of functionality that is coming down the pipeline

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to a squad when wielding this ability, and therefore I would put them in situations where they can not only employ this ability but where they set the tone for this at the company level

You drive long-term technical investments that deliver ongoing value and provide solid foundations for future needs. For example:

• Defines and promotes a long-term vision for how we should strive to communicate information to any stakeholder that pertains to vision, strategy.
• Creates new and better ways for the Product Team to communicate what we do, how we do it, and how it impacts the business
• Executes on a State of the Squad presentation to the executive team

I have observed this person showing a consistent, comfortable, continuous, and clear positive impact to not just internal teams but the community/industry in general when wielding this ability, and they are recognized by the community/industry as an expert

At this exceptional milestone, your impact is foundational to Lessonly's future or is of industry-level prominence. For example:

• Implement new Business / Technical translation techniques and frameworks to meet the needs of the wider community.
• Speaks at conferences/meet-ups about this very subject
• Publishes articles/posts about best practices of how Product can communicate with all the stakeholders of the business