Why product trios outperform solo PMs in building features users actually adopt.
John Fairfax-Ball
Most product teams still rely on the traditional product management model, and it’s failing. The majority of features never get used, adoption rates flatline, and engineers end up as order-takers. This post explains why the “solo PM” era is outdated, how the product trio model (PM, designer, engineer) avoids wasted work, and what it takes to actually implement it.
We've all been there. You spend months, literally months, planning and building what seems like the most brilliant feature ever conceived. The wireframes look perfect. The user stories are tight. Launch day hits and... tumbleweed. Absolutely nothing. The feature just sits there, unused, while your team stares at the adoption metrics in disbelief.
Here's the brutal truth: studies show 80% of product features get virtually no usage. Think about that for a second. Out of every 25 features your team builds, maybe five actually matter to real users.
This isn't an execution problem, it's a structural one. Research by Pendo emphasises that there is a massive "impact, in real dollars, of underutilised software features" that challenges executives to evaluate whether the "time and effort engineers spend building features customers rarely use" is justified.
But here's what's interesting: certain teams seem immune to this curse. They consistently ship features people actually use. Their adoption rates blow past industry averages, and somehow they move faster while doing it. Their secret isn't some revolutionary methodology or cutting-edge tool. They just stopped putting all the pressure on one person and started working as Product Trios.
"When a product trio works together to develop a shared understanding of their customer, they are in a much better position to create products that customers love.” Teresa Torres
Silicon Valley sold us the romantic notion of the product manager as a visionary superhero. One person who magically balances customer needs, market dynamics, business constraints, and technical realities all at once.
Asking a single PM to simultaneously:
It's not just unrealistic; it's setting people up to fail.
“What I wish somebody had told me when I started working as a product manager is: ‘Don’t be a hero.’ Self-styled ‘visionary’ product managers who try to do everything themselves inevitably burn out, miss the mark, or both. Collaboration and humility, not lone genius, are what make great products.” Matt LeMay
Blind spots are guaranteed. When one PM writes requirements in isolation, engineers inevitably find the gaps during development. Cue the delays, the rework, and those uncomfortable "actually, we can't build this" conversations that derail entire sprints.
Customer empathy gets diluted. Passing user insights through multiple people is like playing telephone. By the time those insights reach the engineers actually building the product, the original message has been twisted beyond recognition.
Technical reality hits too late. Major constraints usually surface halfway through development, when timelines are locked and the only options are bad compromises or missed deadlines.
Teams feel like order-takers instead of partners in solving real problems. They become feature factories.
"If the first time the engineers or the tech lead even sees a product idea is at sprint planning, that is a bad product team. They should have seen the idea way before that, from the beginning of the idea. Great product ideas come from engineers, who are working with the enabling technology every single day. The best teams come up with solutions side by side collaboratively.” Marty Cagan
Instead of one overwhelmed person juggling everything, picture this: a Product Trio collaborating from day one.
Each perspective catches what the others miss. Working together from the start, they can kill weak ideas before they consume weeks of development time and team morale.
This isn't theoretical, by the way. You'll find trios quietly driving product success at companies like Spotify, Airbnb, and dozens of others you probably use daily.
The performance difference is staggering:
"The power of the product trio is something I have become very passionate about in the last year as I see how this unique constellation can help unlock the potential of the empowered product teams... Continuous communication is key. Talk to your team, stakeholders, other trios, leaders, partners in analytics, marketing. Talk to everyone! This is how you uncover opportunities and foster the collaboration that leads to breakthrough solutions." Jesper Hauerslev Andersen
Product Trios create a natural checkpoint for every concept:
With all three voices in the room from the beginning, terrible ideas get exposed before they turn into expensive mistakes. Engineers spot technical landmines. Designers catch usability disasters. PMs challenge questionable business assumptions.
And because all three participate in user research directly, insights stick. When an engineer watches someone struggle with a confusing interface, they don't need a PowerPoint deck to understand the problem. When a designer hears a customer's frustration firsthand, it influences every design decision moving forward.
Here's the frustrating part: most product tools still assume one PM runs everything. Product managers live in Productboard, designers work in Figma, engineers track progress in Jira. That's three separate versions of "truth" floating around your organisation.
What's missing are tools designed specifically for trio workflows, where shared context is the default and nobody has to hunt down critical information.
The features that matter:
That's what "trio-native" tooling should look like.
If typical feature adoption hovers around 6.4% and trio-led teams can push that to 30%, you're looking at a 5x improvement in return on development investment. Suddenly every sprint actually moves the needle.
Scale that thinking up, and it even changes how software tools should be priced. Why charge per PM seat when trios are the actual working unit? Price per trio, and your product becomes stickier without any aggressive sales tactics.
"Not every team has formal trios." True, but healthy product teams almost always revolve around PM<>Design<>Engineering collaboration anyway.
"Startups can't afford dedicated roles." Maybe not three full-time people, but even a two-person startup can wear all three hats consciously.
"Sounds like bureaucratic overhead." Actually, it eliminates overhead. Getting aligned upfront beats fighting fires later.
Want to try it? Here's a practical approach:
Weeks 1-2: Get the Band Together
Weeks 3-8: Discovery Together
Weeks 9-12: Build the Framework
As AI handles more routine execution work, human judgment becomes the scarce resource. Identifying the right problems, understanding messy human needs, designing adaptable systems, these aren't solo activities anymore.
The truth is, the lone-PM era was always somewhat fictional. Great products have always emerged from tight collaboration between business, design, and engineering minds.
The trio era isn't some future trend. It's happening right now.
So here's the question: is your team set up to work like one cohesive unit, or are you still pushing forward hoping one person can do it all?
