The reflex
Requests arrive from sales, from the leadership, from users. Product work is mostly visible when they turn into well-written requests.
The builder’s reflex
The product role chooses which problems to take, explains the trade-offs, and checks the results. The writing serves those decisions.
Why
Well-written requests do not say which ones deserve doing. Product work is choosing: connect the needs observed, the goals, the constraints and the capacity, then accept, shrink, defer or refuse. The writing serves that choice, it does not replace it.
That judgement is built with the other trades. Support sees the difficulties that keep coming back, sales knows the commitments, operations sees the load coming, the delivery team proposes the smaller version. Product connects that information and makes the call.
A product role that can refuse nothing is a secretariat. A product role that refuses everything is not listening. What counts is being able to explain every call.
This work exists with no product role at all. In a small company or a community group, choosing which difficulty to take on with the time available is the same job.
Try this
Keep a short record of the calls: request, need, decision, reason, owner, and what would change your mind.
Start with a recent decision and share it with the people concerned. On the agreed date, check whether the need or the results justify holding to it.
Not making the calls yet? Start with one that touched your work. Write down the decision and the reason you were given, then ask the person who made it whether you understood it right.
To discuss
What information would change our last call?