Here is a common conflict that occurs in software projects:
The sales team wants features that are easier to demonstrate to reduce barriers to the selling process and the product team wants flexibility to capture a bigger audience
This type of situation is common in software development and requires balancing the needs of different stakeholders.
The Sales team likely wants an automated and simplified feature that directly serves their needs to close more sales. For example, they may want:
- A simplified purchase flow with fewer options/choices to reduce confusion for new customers
- Automated upselling or recommendation of related products
- Tightly integrated marketing messages in the product to help sell more
The Product team, on the other hand, wants to build a more flexible, powerful solution to serve a wider range of current and future customers. They want:
- A robust feature set with more options and configurations to meet different needs
- An open, extensible platform that can integrate with other systems
- To avoid overly prescriptive design that won’t scale to more complex use cases