Every PM I know lives in a constant state of tension. On one side, you have the “Order Taker” trap. This is where you ship exactly what the customer asks for, button-by-button, until your UI looks like a Frankenstein’s monster of band-aids. It’s shallow, it’s messy, and it doesn’t scale.
But on the other side is a trap that’s even more dangerous for those of us with a technical background: the “Visionary” trap. This is where you apply the Five Whys, find the deep, systemic root cause, and decide to build a “perfect” architectural solution that takes six months to ship.
While you’re building the rocket ship, your user is still bleeding out.
To build an optimal solution, we have to find the Strategic Wedge: the smallest possible move that addresses the deepest possible need.
Where We Go Wrong
1. The Shallow Feature (The Symptoms)
When a customer asks for a “PDF Export,” it’s tempting to just put it in the sprint. But if you don’t ask why, you miss the reality: they are manually scraping data for a weekly slide deck. You’re solving the request, but you aren’t solving the friction.
2. The Bloated Feature (The Over-Engineered Cure)
Because we want to be “good PMs,” we dig deeper. We realize they need Executive Visibility. So, we scope out a real-time analytics dashboard with automated Slack triggers. It’s a beautiful vision, but it’s overkill for right now.
The result? The engineering team is frustrated by scope creep, and the user gets nothing for three quarters.
The Sweet Spot: The Strategic Wedge
The goal is to find the “Wedge”—the intervention that solves the core problem with 20% of the effort.
| The Request (What) | The Root Need (Why) | The Bloated Vision | The Optimal Wedge |
|---|---|---|---|
| “I need more filters.” | I can’t find relevant data. | An AI-powered search engine. | A “Recently Viewed” sidebar. |
| “I want a Chatbot.” | I’m lost in the settings. | A 24/7 LLM support agent. | A 3-step onboarding walkthrough. |
| “Add a CSV Export.” | I need to share this with HQ. | A cross-org API integration. | A “Copy Table to Clipboard” button. |
My Framework for Staying Lean
I’m still trying to find a framework for finding this middle ground, here is what told in my course:
- Ask 5 Why? Ask “Why?” until it hurts to find the actual “Job to be Done.”
- Prioritize: Map the “Quick Fix” against the “Big Vision.”
- Build Lean: Launch the leanest version that addresses the core need while keeping the door open for the future.
The Bottom Line
A great product isn’t one that has every feature a user ever dreamed of. It’s one that has the fewest number of moving parts required to solve the highest number of problems. As PMs, we aren’t just here to listen to customers or dream with engineers. We are here to be the filter. By finding the Wedge, we keep our products lean, our roadmaps fast, and our users actually helped—not just heard.
I’m currently exploring the intersection of engineering logic and product strategy through my Master’s in Product Design and Management at IIIT Hyderabad. If you’ve struggled with ‘Visionary Bloat’ in your own builds, I’d love to hear how you handled it.