👋 hello platform PMs !! I'm platform EM sometimes stepping in as PM so I'm trying to learn more. What are the platform PM's priority typically ? • platform features supporting product teams • dev exp improvement • reduce oncall/manual support • tech debt • security, compliance etc. • KLO how will you typically rank these priority and what are your typical approach to prioritize the right tech debt, KLO, security etc. ?

I don’t like answering questions with questions, but what does the organization deem important? Match up what the org deems important to the priority of the platform.

Agree with Durell. While the charter/mission of platforms is to enable developers, the priorities should be in line with what current business goals. That said, security and cost should be considerations of any work done on the platform.

for my team/org specifically -- i don't always have clarity on business goals. i run our data infra/platform team. it can go from devex if a team constantly complains about their onboarding issue. cost if ceo suddenly want to impose spending limit. it can be security if compliance/data handling become blocker to certain product features. i think essentially i'm not running a "platform as product", i have a portfolio of platform and infrastructure i have to maintain and they all have diff problems. but i'm wondering how will one justify ranking another. for example, what will make security more important than dev ex (which is a very common conflict)

my first thought is - security is always a high priority. even a single breach/hack can cause immense damage

In your case I would map out all your stakeholders and put their top two or three wants/needs on a 2x2 then prioritize whatever features falls into the high value easy to implement box

@Lulu Cheng I would use a prioritization matrix as Durell mentioned. A few that I have used are Eisenhower which maps things on a importance vs urgency matrix and WSJF matrix which ranks initiatives on a value vs effort matrix. There are other frameworks too like the RICE matrix

Hi Lulu, I would recommend you prioritize the customers of your platform and make their experience as frictionless as possible. In terms of ranking, I would work with your CIO/CEO to identify key metrics that you can use to measure the success of your platform, such as: time to deploy an application (on your platform) to production, average cost to build an application number of apps running on your platform, number of outages per week/month.

this is super helpful. i didn't have any of these framework but i've always asked myself: 1. is it ready to be worked on? how much unknown/blockers? 2. does it need to be worked on now? what happens if not, SEV? manual support? app team blocked on features? 3. how easy/hard it is to make it happen technically -- there's work that might just be too complicated 4. how does X work support our long term goals -- nobody likes migration/consolidation but we can significantly simplify dev ex, lower cost, improve security etc. looking them up feels pretty similar to me

I would see it as: • Always on Standard Operating Objectives (ref. The advantage): ◦ Security ◦ Speed (developer productivity) ◦ Scalability (do you scale your infra capabilities along side company growth) • Other source for informing platform team roadmaps are: ◦ Your (internal) customers i.e. the product teams using your infra to build their products - how to continuously better offload them from technical problems so that they can focus on customer problems instead? ◦ Other stakeholders (like CEO/commercial teams etc) and external factors like technology shifts

That’s a great visual. Would love to see the entire post that this is from

Thank you!!