Platform as a Product – A Guide for Platform Product Owners

In the age of digital transformation, platforms are no longer just infrastructure, they are products. Whether you’re building a developer platform, data platform, or infrastructure-as-code toolset, treating your platform as a product is critical for success. This guide helps platform product owners adopt a product mindset to drive value, adoption, and continuous improvement.

What is “Platform as a Product”?

Traditionally, platforms were seen as enablers; tools built and maintained by IT or engineering teams to support other teams. However, when you treat your platform as a product, you:

• Focus on user experience and value delivery.
• Have a product roadmap, not just a backlog.
• Use metrics to drive decisions, not assumptions.
• Engage in ongoing discovery and feedback loops with users.

Your platform becomes a service with clear purpose, lifecycle, and stakeholders.

Know Your Users – Internal Customers Matter

Conduct User Interviews and Surveys

Understanding your users starts with listening. Internal platform users have real pain points and goals that often go unheard. Regular interviews, surveys, and casual check-ins help uncover the friction they experience. This isn’t just about feature requests; it’s about uncovering latent needs that surface only through conversation.

Example Interview and Survey Questions

When conducting interviews or surveys with internal platform users, consider questions such as:

• What are your biggest pain points when using the platform?
• Can you describe a recent task that was difficult or frustrating?
• Which features do you use most often, and why?
• Are there any manual workarounds you rely on?
• How easy was it to get started with the platform?
• What would make your daily workflow easier?
• If you could change one thing about the platform, what would it be?
• How do you currently learn about new platform features or updates?
• Do you feel supported when you encounter issues?
• Would you recommend the platform to your peers? Why or why not?

Tailor questions to your audience and use a mix of open-ended and scaled (e.g., 1–5) responses to gather both qualitative and quantitative insights.

Map Their Journeys and Identify Friction Points

It’s essential to visualise how different teams interact with your platform. Create journey maps that document key touchpoints, from initial onboarding to regular usage. Identify where users get stuck, where they seek workarounds, and what parts of the experience are tedious or unintuitive. These insights guide what to optimise or automate.

Journey Mapping Tips and Examples

When mapping user journeys, start by identifying key personas (e.g. new joiner, experienced developer) and the main tasks they perform on your platform. For each persona, outline the steps they take to accomplish a goal, noting where confusion, delays, or manual work occur.

Tips for Effective Journey Mapping:

• Collaborate with Users: Involve real users in mapping sessions to capture authentic experiences.
• Visualise the Flow: Use diagrams or flowcharts to illustrate each step, decision point, and handoff.
• Highlight Pain Points: Mark steps where users encounter friction, such as unclear documentation, slow approvals, or manual interventions.
• Capture Emotions: Note how users feel at each stage; frustrated, confused, satisfied; to help prioritise improvements.

Example: Onboarding a New Service

1. Request Access: Developer submits a request for platform access.
2. Wait for Approval: Approval process takes 2–3 days (pain point: delays).
3. Read Documentation: Developer struggles to find up-to-date onboarding docs (pain point: discoverability).
4. Set Up Environment: Manual configuration required (pain point: error-prone).
5. Deploy First Service: Deployment succeeds, but monitoring setup is unclear (pain point: lack of guidance).
6. Seek Help: Developer reaches out on Slack, waits for a response (pain point: slow support).

By mapping this journey, you can prioritise automating approvals, improving documentation, and streamlining environment setup to reduce friction.

Example: Troubleshooting a Failed Deployment

1. Receive Failure Notification: Developer gets a generic error message.
2. Search for Solution: Looks through documentation, finds no relevant troubleshooting guide.
3. Contact Support: Opens a ticket, waits for a response.
4. Resolution: Support provides a workaround, which is not documented for future reference.

This journey highlights the need for better error messages, comprehensive troubleshooting docs, and a feedback loop to update documentation after incidents.

Prioritise Features That Improve Their Outcomes

Avoid the trap of building for technical impressiveness. Instead, prioritise work that improves your users’ daily lives—features that remove blockers, reduce cognitive load, and accelerate delivery. When platform enhancements align directly with business outcomes (like faster time to market or fewer incidents), adoption and satisfaction follow.

Examples of Prioritising Platform Work

• Automate Repetitive Tasks: If onboarding new services requires manual steps that slow teams down, prioritise automating those workflows before adding new features.
• Fix High-Impact Pain Points: If user feedback consistently highlights confusing error messages or unreliable deployments, address these issues first to improve trust and usability.
• Enable Key Business Initiatives: If a new product launch depends on platform capabilities (e.g. support for a new programming language or deployment target), prioritise those enhancements to unblock delivery.
• Reduce Support Burden: If the support team spends significant time answering the same questions, invest in better documentation or self-service tools to free up resources.
• Measure and Improve Time-to-Value: If it takes too long for users to achieve their first successful deployment, focus on streamlining onboarding and setup processes.

Define and Measure Platform Value

Time-to-First Successful Integration

One of the clearest signals of platform usability is how long it takes a user to get something working. Whether it’s integrating an API, deploying a service, or running a pipeline, reducing this “time-to-value” metric should be a core goal. Faster onboarding often equates to happier, more productive users.

To effectively track this metric: define a clear start and end point, for example, “start” could be when a user receives access, and “end” when they complete their first successful deployment or integration. If possible, instrument the platform; add logging or analytics to capture onboarding milestones automatically.

Frequency of Usage or Engagement

Platforms need to be sticky to be successful. Tracking how often teams use the platform, and for what purposes, reveals whether it’s becoming a central part of their workflow or just an occasional tool. Frequent, meaningful use is a key indicator of value.

To effectively measure platform engagement, consider; tracking active users; monitor the number of unique users interacting with the platform daily, weekly, or monthly, monitor feature usage; analyse which features or services are used most frequently, task completion rates; track how often users successfully complete key workflows (e.g. deployments), feedback and support requests; monitor the volume and nature of support tickets or feedback.

Reduction in Incident Rates or Duplicated Work

A great platform removes complexity and centralises common solutions. Track whether using the platform leads to fewer production incidents, more consistent deployments, or less duplicated tooling across teams. These operational improvements show the platform is solving real problems.

NPS or Developer Satisfaction Scores

Qualitative metrics matter too. Net Promoter Score (NPS) or similar satisfaction surveys help quantify how users feel about the platform. Are they recommending it to peers? Do they trust it? Sentiment often reveals gaps that metrics miss.

Create a Clear Platform Strategy

What Problem Does Our Platform Solve?

Every good product solves a problem. Your platform should have a clearly articulated reason to exist; one that resonates with users and leadership alike. Whether it’s speeding up deployments, standardising data access, or enabling reusable services, the core problem statement should guide all decisions.

An example platform problem statement:

Our internal developer platform exists to reduce the time and effort required for engineering teams to deploy and operate services in production. By standardising deployment pipelines, automating infrastructure provisioning, and providing self-service tools, we eliminate repetitive manual tasks, minimise onboarding friction, and enable teams to focus on delivering business value rather than managing infrastructure.

This clear problem statement guides platform priorities and helps communicate value to stakeholders.

Who Benefits from It, and How?

Different user personas will extract different value from your platform. Engineers may benefit from improved CI/CD pipelines, while analysts gain from centralised data access. Mapping these benefits helps you prioritise development, tailor messaging, and measure impact.

How Will It Evolve Over Time?

A good strategy is not static. Outline a clear evolution path for the platform: what’s coming next quarter, next year, and beyond. Your roadmap should reflect both user needs and strategic business priorities, creating a narrative of long-term value.

Roadmapping tips for platform product owners:

• Start with Outcomes: Anchor your roadmap to user and business outcomes, not just features. Define what success looks like for each initiative.
• Balance Short and Long Term: Mix quick wins (e.g. pain point fixes) with strategic investments (e.g. foundational capabilities or integrations).
• Prioritise Ruthlessly: Use data from user feedback, support tickets, and metrics to prioritise work that delivers the most value.
• Visualise Dependencies: Clearly show dependencies between initiatives, especially where platform work unblocks other teams.
• Communicate Clearly: Use simple, visual formats (e.g. timelines, Kanban boards) and share regularly with stakeholders.
• Stay Flexible: Review and adjust the roadmap frequently as needs and priorities shift. Be transparent about changes and the reasons behind them.
• Include Non-Feature Work: Don’t forget technical debt, documentation, and operational improvements, these are critical for long-term success.
• Solicit Feedback: Treat the roadmap as a living document. Invite feedback from users and stakeholders to ensure alignment.

Invest in Developer Experience (DX)

Developer Experience (DX) refers to the overall experience developers have when interacting with your platform, tools, and processes. It encompasses everything from onboarding and documentation to APIs, support, and day-to-day usability. A positive DX means developers can accomplish their goals efficiently, with minimal friction and frustration. Investing in DX leads to higher adoption, faster delivery, and greater satisfaction among your internal customers.

Clear Documentation and Examples

Documentation is a key product surface. Incomplete or outdated docs stall adoption. Invest in clear, concise guides, reference examples, and use-case-based tutorials. Think of documentation as part of your onboarding funnel, not an afterthought.

Documentation Best Practices

• Keep it Up-to-Date: Regularly review and update documentation to reflect platform changes, new features, and deprecations.
• Structure for Discoverability: Organise content with clear navigation, logical sections, and search functionality so users can quickly find what they need.
• Use Real-World Examples: Provide practical code snippets, sample workflows, and common use cases to help users apply concepts.
• Be Concise and Clear: Write in simple, direct language. Avoid jargon and explain acronyms or domain-specific terms.
• Include Troubleshooting Guides: Anticipate common issues and document solutions or workarounds.
• Encourage Contributions: Make it easy for users to suggest improvements or report errors, fostering a culture of shared ownership.
• Version Your Docs: Clearly indicate which documentation applies to which platform version to avoid confusion.
• Test Your Instructions: Validate that guides and examples work as described by having someone unfamiliar with the feature follow them.

These practices ensure your documentation remains a valuable, trusted resource that accelerates onboarding and supports ongoing platform adoption.

Self-Service Onboarding

Internal users should be able to get started with minimal hand-holding. Create self-service portals, automated setup scripts, and clear walkthroughs that make onboarding fast and painless. The more autonomous your users are, the more scalable your platform becomes.

Leverage an Internal Developer Platform (IDP)

Consider adopting an Internal Developer Platform (IDP) to streamline developer workflows and standardise best practices. An IDP provides self-service capabilities for provisioning infrastructure, deploying applications, and managing environments, all within guardrails set by your platform team. By abstracting complexity and automating repetitive tasks, an IDP empowers developers to focus on delivering value rather than wrestling with tooling or processes. Evaluate solutions that fit your organisation’s needs, whether building in-house or leveraging open-source/commercial offerings, and ensure the platform is extensible, secure, and well-integrated with your existing ecosystem.

If you’re considering adopting an IDP, several open-source and commercial solutions can accelerate your journey:

• Backstage (by Spotify): An open-source platform for building developer portals. Backstage centralises tools, services, and documentation, making it easier for developers to discover and use platform capabilities.
  • backstage.io
• Roadie: A managed Backstage offering, providing a plug-and-play developer portal with integrations and support.
  • roadie.io
• Humanitec: A commercial IDP focused on environment management, self-service deployments, and automating infrastructure provisioning. It provides strong integration with existing CI/CD pipelines.
  • humanitec.com
• Port: An open-source developer portal that helps teams manage software catalogs, environments, and golden paths for service creation.
  • getport.io
• Cortex: A commercial platform for service catalog, scorecards, and developer self-service, designed to improve reliability and standardisation.
  • cortex.io
• Platform.sh: A commercial platform-as-a-service (PaaS) that provides self-service environments, automation, and governance for application delivery.
  • platform.sh

When evaluating IDPs, consider your organisation’s requirements for extensibility, integration, security, and support. Many teams start with open-source solutions like Backstage and extend them to fit their needs, while others opt for managed offerings to reduce operational overhead.

Well-Designed APIs and SDKs

APIs are the face of many platforms. Design them to be intuitive, consistent, and well-documented. Provide SDKs or CLI tools where appropriate to reduce friction. Developer empathy in API design pays long-term dividends in adoption and trust.

Tips for designing APIs and SDKs with great developer experience:

• Consistency is Key: Use consistent naming conventions, error formats, and authentication patterns across endpoints and SDK methods.
• Intuitive Design: Follow established REST, GraphQL, or RPC conventions. Make endpoints and methods predictable and self-explanatory.
• Comprehensive Documentation: Provide clear API references, usage examples, and SDK guides. Include sample requests, responses, and error cases.
• Strong Typing and Validation: Use strong typing in SDKs (e.g. TypeScript types) and validate inputs/outputs to catch errors early.
• Helpful Error Messages: Return actionable, descriptive error messages with guidance on how to resolve issues.
• Versioning and Stability: Clearly version APIs and SDKs. Communicate breaking changes and provide migration guides.
• Easy Authentication: Simplify authentication flows and provide clear instructions for obtaining and using credentials.
• Testability: Offer sandbox environments or mock servers so developers can safely test integrations.
• Idiomatic SDKs: Make SDKs feel natural in each target language, following community idioms and packaging standards.
• Feedback Channels: Encourage feedback and provide a clear path for reporting issues or suggesting improvements.

Responsive Support or Community Channels

Even with great docs, users will have questions. Set up Slack channels, office hours, or ticketing systems for responsive support. Consider embedding platform advocates within teams or creating a champions program to drive adoption organically.

Tips for providing good platform support:

• Be Proactive: Monitor channels for common issues and address them before they escalate. Share known issues and workarounds openly.
• Set Clear Expectations: Communicate support hours, response times, and escalation paths so users know what to expect.
• Document Resolutions: Capture solutions to recurring problems in FAQs or documentation to reduce repeat questions.
• Empathise with Users: Listen actively, acknowledge frustrations, and show genuine interest in resolving issues.
• Follow Up: Check in after resolving issues to ensure users are satisfied and to gather feedback for improvement.
• Encourage Self-Service: Guide users to documentation, tutorials, and self-service tools to empower them and reduce support load.

Establish a Service Rota and Fast Response Times

To build trust and prevent developer frustration, establish a clear service rota for platform support. Ensure that requests and incidents are triaged and addressed promptly, ideally with defined response time targets. When developers know they’ll get timely help, they’re less likely to bypass the platform or create shadow solutions. A visible rota and transparent SLAs reinforce the platform’s reliability and the team’s commitment to user success.

Operate with a Product Mindset

Product Discovery – Validate Before Building

Before committing to build features, validate their value. Use prototypes, surveys, or quick POCs to test ideas. Don’t rely solely on stakeholder requests, dig into the underlying problems first. Discovery is how you avoid building shelfware.

Backlog Grooming – Prioritise Based on User Value

Not all tasks are created equal. Regularly refine your backlog with an eye toward impact: What’s the user benefit? How does this tie into strategic goals? Avoid letting technical debt or nice-to-haves dominate your roadmap without clear justification.

Agile Delivery – Iterate and Learn Quickly

Use agile practices not just for speed, but for learning. Ship small, get feedback, and adjust. Platform development often requires tighter feedback loops since your users are internal and available for faster iteration.

Communication – Market Your Platform Internally

Build it and they won’t necessarily come. You need to market the platform internally: demos, release notes, internal newsletters, and showcases can help drive awareness and interest. Position the platform as a solution, not a mandate.

Foster a Feedback Loop

Developer Satisfaction Surveys

Regular pulse surveys can help measure platform sentiment and identify areas for improvement. Ask about pain points, perceived value, and feature gaps. Treat this data as a product signal, not just a formality.

Open Office Hours or Community Forums

Create open channels for feedback and collaboration. Weekly office hours or dedicated forums allow users to voice concerns, share suggestions, and feel heard. These spaces also create community and shared ownership around platform success.

Embedded Product Managers or Advocates

One of the most effective ways to gather feedback is to have embedded advocates. Whether it’s a platform PM sitting in on product team standups or a developer evangelist acting as a liaison, these roles help bridge the gap between the platform team and its users.

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

Over-Engineering

It’s tempting to build the perfect platform architecture. But perfection often delays value. Build incrementally, focusing on delivering working solutions to real problems. Technical elegance should serve usability, not replace it.

No Marketing

Internal products still need adoption. If users don’t understand what the platform does or how it helps them, they won’t use it. Document benefits, share success stories, and ensure every release is accompanied by clear, human-centric communication.

Lack of Ownership

Treating the platform like a one-off project instead of a living product leads to decay. Assign clear ownership with KPIs, vision, and a roadmap. A well-governed platform evolves with user needs and business direction.

Conclusion: Treat Your Platform Like a Product

Your platform has the potential to drive scale, consistency, and innovation across your organisation. But that only happens if it’s built and managed like a product; with strategy, user empathy, measurable outcomes, and continuous iteration. By adopting a product mindset, platform teams become enablers of speed and quality, not just service providers.