29 May 20261 min readProduct / Planning
Three questions before a workflow becomes a product requirement
ByEthan
A request is not automatically a requirement. First find out how often it happens, who depends on it, and what it is costing.
“Can the system also do this?” is a reasonable question. The mistake is treating every reasonable request as a reason to expand the build.
Make the trade-off visible
Ask three things. How often does this actually happen? Who depends on it when it does? What goes wrong or gets slower without it? The answers separate a real operational need from an edge case that can stay manual for now.
Run your team's last feature request through those three questions and see if it survives.
Found this useful?
We solve problems like this for a living.
If something here mirrors what you are running into, send us a note. We will tell you what the next step looks like.