The Triangle of Success
A Simple Framework for High-Impact Product Decisions
“So what are we going to start with?” I had 20+ initiatives in front of me. Ideas, high-level concepts, big bets from the product leaders in my org, and multiple complaints, internal pains, and business goals to advance in an 18-month roadmap. What was Q3 going to look like going directly into Q4 with heavy PTO and a couple of regulatory-mandated coming Code Locks on the horizon?
As product leaders, we’re constantly asked to balance competing priorities: advancing business goals, solving core user problems, and staying true to what makes the company unique. Over the years, I developed a simple framework I call the Triangle of Success, which has helped me and my teams navigate these trade-offs and make decisions that drive meaningful results.
To be fully transparent here: It didn’t always exist as this handy little framework. Recently, while answering some questions for a mentee, I was laying out a personal decision-making framework and thought through past examples where my teams have done this work and how we created success over and over again.
Even the real-world example cited below was born out of extensive work by multiple team members across our product organizations, engineering teams, and a select group of subject matter experts. No product leader makes all their decisions in a vacuum — at least not the successful ones.
The Triangle of Success Framework
The Triangle of Success rests on 3 Foundational Points:
1️. Protect the Unique Value Proposition (UVP)
Your UVP is the core promise your organization makes to its customers: the reason they choose your brand over anyone else. In many companies, the UVP isn’t the technology itself but the outcome the company delivers, whether it’s caring for patients, managing complex logistics, or providing financial security.
2️. Advance Business Goals
Technology investments and product decisions must support tangible business outcomes. Whether it’s increasing net profit, reducing operational costs, or improving market share, each decision should align with business strategy.
3️. Solve the Core User Problem
Too often, teams become caught up in internal demands or surface-level metrics, losing sight of the fundamental problems users face. The core problem is the friction point that, when resolved, transforms the user experience and delivers value.
When a product decision supports all three points of this triangle, it’s usually a strong, strategic move. When it doesn’t, it exposes trade-offs that need to be addressed transparently.
“A great product strategy is as much about what you’re not going to do as what you are.” — Marty Cagan, Inspired.
A Real-World Example: The 5-Minute Fix
At one point in my career, I worked with radiology technologists, the individuals who perform scans in hospitals. Our internal platform was designed to help them manage imaging, which in turn supported clinical workflows, but the workflow itself had become a bloated and cumbersome user experience.
Radiology techs don’t want to spend time in a software system. They want to scan, deliver high-quality images to radiologists, and move on to the next patient. We discovered that techs were spending unnecessary extra minutes navigating through the system, which contributed to frustration and lower Net Promoter Scores (NPS).
By streamlining workflows, removing screens, reducing clicks, and providing a new user experience overall, our teams reduced the Rad Tech’s time in the system by nearly five minutes per scan session (including the required follow-up). As a result, we saw a nearly 4-point improvement in NPS.
It might seem counterintuitive — shouldn’t we want users to spend more time on our product to drive “stickiness?” Not in every case! In this case, the core problem was the time burden. By solving it:
- We advanced the business goal of improving user satisfaction and retention.
- We protected the UVP, which provided seamless and efficient patient care.
- We directly solved the core problem, improving operational flow and freeing techs to focus on patient interactions.
According to a Harvard Business Review study, reducing customer effort is a stronger driver of loyalty than “delight” strategies. 94% of low-effort customers report an intention to repurchase, and 88% indicate they’ll spend more. (1)
When Not to Use the Triangle
While the Triangle of Success is a valuable tool, it’s not universally applicable. For early-stage experiments or moonshot innovation work, you might intentionally deprioritize immediate business goals to learn quickly or explore new value propositions.
Likewise, for purely compliance-driven features, the focus is often on regulatory alignment first, and the triangle shouldn’t enter the discussion. Working in healthcare and other heavily regulated industries means you have to bring your technologies up to par to meet compliance standards.
“If you’re not embarrassed by the first version of your product, you’ve launched too late.” — Reid Hoffman.
How It Reveals Trade-Offs
One of the most significant hidden benefits of this framework is that it forces explicit conversations about trade-offs. You’ll quickly see when a decision favors business goals at the expense of user needs or when a feature threatens to dilute your core value proposition.
It becomes a practical language for aligning cross-functional teams, from executives to engineers, and a way to justify why you say “not yet” to specific requests. Which every product leader has to do.
Why It Resonates in Low-Maturity Product Organizations
According to the 2022 State of Agile report, only 18% of organizations reported having rolled out agile practices to all teams. A testament to how few have truly matured their practice and why simple frameworks, such as the Triangle of Success, are so valuable in early-stage product environments. (2)
In organizations new to product thinking, the Triangle of Success offers a simple, visual way to understand prioritization beyond “just building what stakeholders want.”
It helps shift mindsets from output-driven to outcome-driven, showing that not every new feature or customization is valuable if it doesn’t fit all three points of the triangle. It also builds credibility and trust with engineering, operations, and business partners by providing a consistent rationale for decision-making.
2 More Tools for your Toolbox
It even works for Discovery-First decisioning
The Discovery-First approach involves researching market trends, addressing internal pain points, and capturing the voice of the customer. These relate directly to the points on the
Triangle of Success: (Discovery First)
- Market Trends = UVP Protection
- Internal Pain = Business Goal Advanced
- Voice of Customer = Core Problem Addressed
Customer Journeys Help Discover the Core Problem to be Addressed
One of the most effective ways to uncover the real, often hidden, core problem is through a detailed analysis of the customer journey. In my experience, journey mapping forces you to step away from internal assumptions and view the product through your users’ eyes, revealing all the friction points, workarounds, and frustrations that are often hidden. When I worked with different users, for example, we didn’t simply look at system logs or hear high-level complaints and ticket volumes.
We shadowed and mapped every step of their day, from the moment they entered the process to the outcome, and identified exactly where our technology was slowing them down rather than enabling them. By walking in the Rad Tech shoes, for example, we found that the core problem wasn’t simply feature gaps or missing buttons — it was time lost in the system that kept them from focusing on patient care.
Customer journeys transform vague “we need to make it better” ideas into clear, actionable problems to solve, directly informing which trade-offs to make and where to focus improvements. We also have a metric to center our work around, which enables us to make data-driven decisions. However, due to the journey work, we’re looking in the right area to start testing and seeing outcomes.
Maximizing satisfaction with customer journeys has the potential not only to increase customer satisfaction by 20% but also to lift revenue by 15% while lowering the cost of serving customers by as much as 20%. (3)
Final Thoughts
Product management is ultimately about making smart decisions that balance the needs of the business, the user, and the brand promise. The simple Triangle of Success has served me well in aligning teams and delivering real results, like transforming a frustrating five-minute bottleneck into a powerful NPS and user experience win.
If you’re looking for a lightweight yet impactful framework to enhance your decision-making, consider your triangle. Ask yourself:
- Does this protect our UVP?
- Does this advance our business goals?
- Does this solve a core problem for our users?
If you can confidently answer “yes” to all three, you’re on the path to high-impact product success.
Citations:
- Dixon, Matthew, Karen Freeman, and Nicholas Toman. “Stop Trying to Delight Your Customers.” Harvard Business Review, July–August 2010.
- Lindy Quick. “State of Agile: Things You Need to Know,” KnowledgeHut, February 13, 2025
- https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/retail/our-insights/the-three-cs-of-customer-satisfaction-consistency-consistency-consistency
About the Author
Sean L. Adams is a Director of Product Management with 15+ years of experience driving platform transformation and organizational change across healthcare, fintech, and SaaS. He specializes in building high-performing teams, aligning business strategy with product execution, and modernizing legacy systems into scalable, future-ready platforms.
Learn more at www.SeanLAdams.com or connect with him on LinkedIn.
