“When your product leader assigns a new initiative to your product trio, ask your leader to share more of the business context with you. Explore these questions: Who is the target customer for this initiative? What business outcome are we trying to drive with this initiative? Why do we think this initiative will drive that outcome? (Be careful with Why? questions. They can put some leaders on the defensive. Use your best judgment, based on your knowledge of your specific leader.) Try to connect the dots between the business outcome and potential product outcomes. Can you clearly define how this new initiative will impact a product outcome? Is that outcome a leading indicator of the lagging indicator, business outcome?”