Product leadership that scores capture will invent a dongle

Product leadership that only scores capture will invent a dongle.

Lightning kept accessories inside Apple’s wall. iMessage stayed closed while RCS waited. Macs shipped two ports and called the rest an accessory. Storage you cannot swap, so the next laptop is the upgrade.

I have supported the software version of that cable.

Three apps, three starts

At Optum, three mobile apps lived because three teams did: Rx, Patient, and Guide. Each had a surface to protect. The member started over each time they switched. That is capture. It looks like ownership on a dashboard and like a dongle in the person’s hand.

Unifying them into one React Native platform for 13M members did not make anyone’s private surface look bigger. It meant one session, one job, one place the member actually finished. Feature delivery sped up. We took cost off the run-rate. Those are real. They are not why we did it. We did it so a member did not have to learn three products to finish one job.

Capture is a local optimum

A team scored on its own app will keep that app alive. A team scored on ports shipped will ship two ports. A team scored on accessories attached will invent the dongle.

The metric is not wrong. It is pointed at the wall, not the job.

I have watched this in healthcare, in freight, in every place a platform is a collection of surfaces. The honest score is whether the user finished. Refill. Find a provider. Get a load. If that number requires three apps and a dongle of context, you are measuring capture.

What I score now

Before I keep a surface, I want to say out loud: what job does the user finish here, and can they finish it without starting over somewhere else.

If the answer is no, the surface is a cable. Kill it or fold it. Do not dress it up as a portfolio.

Apple’s wall is visible. Software walls are easier to miss because they look like roadmaps.