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Hey Reader 👋🏻

Not for the first time, my 5 year old son has provided a brilliant lesson - for life and PX design... which all started with a simple request;

“Dad, I need you to cut the cape off my Batman toy.”

Which led to a perfect lesson in PX product discovery, something I will now refer to as "cut the cape" requests!

How many “cut the cape” requests are sitting in your People roadmap right now? 👀

• The manager who says: “We need a new performance process.”
• The founder who says: “Can you roll out an engagement tool?”
• The exec who says: “Let’s launch a mentorship programme.”

All solutions. Very few clearly articulated problems.

The Batman cape incident

“Dad, I need you to cut the cape off my Batman toy.”

“Why?”

“Because I don’t want it on there any more.”

“Why?”

“Because I just don’t want it on there any more, please Dad!”

I went into default parent mode: once we cut it off, it can’t be repaired… we should respect our toys…

Conclusion: “No, sorry son – I won’t cut the cape off.”

Cue: mini tantrum. Tears. Rising tension.

Then my product brain kicked in and I genuinely had the conscious thought:

I even laughed at myself as it popped into my head. 😆 - who the f*ck actually thinks like this mid toddler tantrum?!

Me, apparently. I am what I am. 🤷🏻🙈

“Come sit with me and tell me again why you want to cut the cape off.”

A few simple discovery questions later, we got to the truth:

💡 Aha. Now we have the real, first-principle problem to solve.

Aaryan didn’t actually want a capeless Batman.

He wanted Batman without the itchy, annoying distraction so he could get back to playing.

Aaryan had jumped into solution mode with the very logical chain of thought:

Logical. But irreversible.

And my parental intuition could already see the next ticket in the backlog:

So instead, I suggested:

(I did first try the product-manager question: “How else could we solve this problem?” — absolutely no joy there. 😅)

Reluctantly, he agreed.

Sixty seconds later:

✅ Aaryan was happily playing, itch-free.
✅ Batman kept his dignity (and his cape).
✅ We landed on a temporary solution to a temporary problem.

I’d call that a small win in first-principles problem solving.

And it’s exactly what great People teams do.

Why this matters for People Experience

Your stakeholders will almost always bring you solutions when what they’re really feeling is an itch:

• “We need a new performance process” = I don’t trust our current visibility on performance or progression.
• “Can you roll out an engagement tool?” = I’m nervous people are disengaged and I have no data to prove or disprove it.
• “Let’s launch a mentorship programme” = Our ICs aren’t growing fast enough and we don’t have a clear path for them.

If you take these "cut the cape" requests at face value, you end up:

• Shipping irreversible changes (cutting capes off)
• Over-engineering permanent solutions for temporary problems
• Implementing tools and programmes that don’t actually solve the underlying itch

In PX terms: you burn time and credibility delivering “features” instead of fixing real experience bugs.

Product-Led PX lives or dies on discovery: If you don’t understand the itch, your roadmap will be full of solution-led requests which will burn through your time and resources with no clear link to the core People Product value chain:

The problem to solve → Functional Outcomes (what's changed) → Business Impact.

If you don't actually understand the problems your are solving, connecting and communicating the value chain of business impact is impossible.

A simple discovery framework: from “cut the cape” to “what’s the itch?”

When a stakeholder turns up with a solution request, try this 3-step move:

1. Put the scissors down ✂️

Resist the urge to immediately say yes/no or start designing.

✅ Yes without discovery = low impact solution-led backlog
❌ No without discovery = frustrated stakeholders who see you as a blocker

Instead, ask some questions:

• “can you tell me what’s prompted this?”
• “What’s happening today that makes this feel urgent?”
• “If we did nothing for 3–6 months, what’s the risk?”

Apply a product mindset: Don’t cut; don’t commit. Pause and hold the space for curiosity.

2. Find the itch 👀

The second layer of discovery is to really understand the experience behind the request:

Questions to ask:

• “Whose experience are we really talking about here?” (Managers, ICs, new joiners, leadership?)
• “What’s the moment where it really hurts? Can you walk me through it step by step?”
• “What have people actually said or done that tells you this is a problem?”

I talked about the importance of good discovery questions inspired by Rob Fitzpatrick's The Mom Test in a previous newsletter, now might be a good time to revisit that one!

You’re looking for:

• Frustrations and pains (itches)
• Conflicts or friction points
• Outcomes at risk (performance, retention, speed, trust)

Once you’ve heard enough, try to summarise back a problem statement:

💡I also gave a walk through on how to write good problem statements earlier this year too.

3. Design reversible, testable solutions 🧪

Ok, now you are ready to think about solutions – and it's best to start small and reversible.

Instead of “new performance process”, maybe it’s:

• A lightweight feedback ritual for one team
• A pilot of monthly check-in templates with 5 managers
• A script and manager training experiment for early performance conversations

You’re effectively saying:

If it works, we can scale. If it doesn’t, we take the tape off and try something else, no one’s toy is permanently damaged 🙏🏻

Bringing it back to Batman

In PX, your stakeholders are just like Aaryan (I am resisting making obvious jokes about Founder CEO's who act like toddlers 🙊).

They feel an itch: something about the People experience is irritating, distracting, or slowing them down.

Their brain jumps to:

Your role as a strategic People leader is to:

• Put the scissors down
• Find the real itch
• Design reversible, testable solutions

Successful People teams think like Product teams:

🧠 Problem-led, not solution-led.
🔁 Iterative, not one-and-done.
🧪 Experimental, not all-in-from-day-one.

Try this this week

Look at your current People roadmap or inbox.

1. Identify one “cut the cape” request you’ve taken at face value.
2. Go back to the stakeholder and run a 15-minute discovery chat using the prompts I shared
3. Rewrite the initiative as a clear problem statement and design a reversible first experiment, not a permanent solution.

And next time someone says, “I want you to cut the cape off…”

Pause and ask: “What’s the real itch here?”

OK, that’s a wrap for this week.

Grab your coffee and open up your inbox same time next week for more insights, tips, and resource flags on how to smash HR silos, add strategic value and turn your People function into a growth driver 🚀

With love,

Luke ✌🏻

PS, when you are ready you might like...

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