As a Product Manager, I often questioned why more developers weren’t using my Platform. I thought I was building for everyone, but I was lucky if I had 1 or 2 enthusiastic users. The theory states that Platform Engineering allows DevOps to scale across an organisation, but in my implementations, it didn’t. As we shifted from the DevOps mindset to Platforms, the landscape of Platform Engineering evolved from being embedded within or adjacent to individual application teams to forming a central Platform team that serves multiple teams simultaneously. However, this transition created a widening gap between the Platform and its users—an empathy gap. The longer this separation persists, the bigger the empathy gap becomes. I believe we can close this gap by using Product Management techniques and treating our Platform as a Product. In this talk, Cat, a Product Manager with five years of experience working alongside Platform teams, will share practical Product Management techniques you can use when building your Platforms to close the Empathy Gap.

1. Bridging the Platform
Empathy Gap
Applying Product Management to
Platform Engineering
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4. “Things were good before we started
scaling. The devs now have no idea
what they are doing.”
“Developers need clear guard rails.
Otherwise they break things.”
“They just ignore the platform and do
whatever they want, whenever they want”
“I have to help our developers
with everything. It’s so tiring”

5. Why are Platform Engineers
so frustrated by their users?

6. Hypothesis 1
Moving from DevOps to
Platform Engineering created
an Empathy Gap

12. Hypothesis 2
The larger the Empathy Gap,
the lower your platform
adoption.

13. “Software usage is simply logging on
to a platform and engaging with it,
whereas, software adoption is
leveraging and using the platform to
reap its benefits.”
apty.io

14. ● Infra-driven development
● Big Gap: Slooooooow
● Low Adoption: Used as little as possible
● Frequent, universal black-outs
● Big Gap: Unreliable
● Low Adoption: They built their own
● Half-hearted automation
● Big Gap: Not feature complete enough
● Low Adoption: Gaming the system

15. Hypothesis 3
Platforms with low adoption
will fail

16. What does a successful
Platform look like?

17. Cheaper.
Quicker.
Safer.

18. Cheaper.
Quicker.
Safer.
Developers use the Platform
as intended.

19. Without developers
adopting your platform
you do not have a
successful platform

20. Hypothesis 1
Moving from DevOps to Platform Engineering
created an Empathy Gap
Hypothesis 2
The larger the Empathy Gap, the lower your platform
adoption
Hypothesis 3
Platforms with low adoption will fail

21. Conclusion
Platforms with a large
Empathy Gap
will also fail.

22. Define a North Star metric

23. “[A north star metric] condenses down everything
your product is really aiming to do above all
other functions”
Ellen Merryweather for Product School

24. Make it related to
adoption

25. Understand why your
developers do not adopt your
platform

26. 1. It isn’t valuable
2. It isn’t usable
3. It isn’t valuable or usable

27. ● You are frustrated due to the platform
empathy gap
● Large empathy gap means low adoption
● Bridge the gap and make adoption your
north star metric
● Fix the reasons why developers don’t adopt
your platform

28. Thank you!
cat@syntasso.io • www.linkedin.com/in/catmo/