Main idea

One and the same product question interests several functions, and each expects something different from it. Support wants an answer they can use in front of the customer. The CSM wants usage and impact. Sales want to know what they can promise and what value to highlight. The Product Manager wants the rule, the limit and the exception. Leadership wants the stakes.

The reflex is to draw one answer per audience. It isn't necessary, and it is expensive: that many versions to produce, and above all to keep consistent with one another, which reproduces at the scale of a single answer the problem that a proliferation of artifacts creates at the scale of a product.

A single answer split into angles is enough — a short part that answers, a support part, a usage part, a value part, a limits part, an evidence part. Everyone reads what they need. The split follows the questions asked, not the recipients, which keeps it stable when the organization changes its roles around.

Why it matters

This disposes of a frequent objection to sharing one document: "it isn't written for my function". The answer isn't to write a version per function, it is to make visible where each of them should read.

It also produces a side effect that is far from neutral: a salesperson who comes across the "limits" part, a CSM who comes across the technical origin of a behavior. Reading a neighboring angle is exposure, not leakage.

Nuances and limits

Uniqueness has a reading cost: everyone goes through a longer document than the one that would have been written for them, and a badly signposted angle reads as noise.

And it assumes nothing forbids sharing. Some organizations choose to restrict what each function sees, and a single document then becomes impossible for a reason that has nothing to do with the writing.

Open questions

• Which angles do you split along when the question belongs to no identified function, or to several at once?