Product Discovery for Internal Enabler Teams


Product Discovery for
Internal Enabler Teams

PUBLISHED

Apr 2, 2026

READ ON

HERBIG.CO

​Dear Reader,​

Because the customers of your product just sit three desks away, you might think you can just "talk to them." And that's precisely what often leads to the low adoption of better product practices among product teams working on internal products (also sometimes called Enabler Teams). And why, when a user has a company email address, it is likely nobody's doing discovery on their behalf.

Because you might interact with colleagues every day, it can seem that you understand them. But that may just mean you hear the loudest voices: colleagues who complain in standups, or the ones who ping you on Slack. While the silent majority builds a no-code workaround to your internal CRM.

It's the bias you'd have with external users, but dressed in a company hoodie.

Three rationalizations I keep hearing:

We can just ask them: Asking a colleague what they need is not the same as understanding how they work. People describe their workflow as they think it works, not as it actually does. Plus, they will be tempted to dumb transfer their wish list into your backlog.

Possible Solution: Focus on behavioral data sources, not just attitudinal.

They have to use it anyway: No, they don't. People are remarkably creative at routing around tools they find unhelpful. 80% of your internal tool's capabilities can probably be covered by Excel, Lovable, and Claude.

Possible Solution: Be as alert about alternatives you're competing against and make them explicit as part of the playing field of your Product Strategy.

The stakes are lower: They're higher. You can't acquire new users. These are the only users you'll ever have. Lose their trust in v1...good luck getting them to try v2 without a CEO mandate.

Possible Solution: Invest in more white-glove, high-touch onboarding and rollouts.

Fundamental discovery principles don't change for enabler teams. You're still reducing uncertainty to protect the company's investment. Still connecting solutions to user problems to business goals. But the biggest risk is different: It's rarely "will they want this?" It's "will they actually use this instead of the thing they've already cobbled together?"

The usual discovery risks don't disappear when the user sits three desks away.

Thank you for Practicing Product,

Tim

Ways we can work together

1️⃣ Order my book: Real Progress: How to Connect the Dots of Product Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery, which readers call "a practical guide you can return to again and again."

2️⃣ Join my Workshop From Staring at KPIs to Prioritizing with OKRs, in 6 Hours, for turning generic dashboard metrics into useful goals, helping you prioritize and measure your work.

3️⃣ Join the Live Cohort of my How to Build and Execute a Winning Product Strategy course, to learn how to set up your own Strategy process that allows you to say no to things and that creates clarity and context, instead of theoretical processes.

4️⃣ Learn about my training and coaching options for product teams, with a focus on creating strategic clarity, setting pragmatic goals, and implementing real-life discovery practices to reduce risk

If you consume one thing this week, make it this...

Competitive differentiation is poison

The next time you’re in a heated strategic conversation, pay attention.

If “competitive differentiation” or “unique selling proposition” are taking up a lot of airtime, notice where the focus lands. These terms pull your attention toward what’s different — not what’s better.

Instead, spotlight the term competitive advantage. Ask:

  • What advantages do we have relative to others in the market?
  • How can we turn those advantages into a product that’s better for customers?

When you focus on advantages instead of differences, you realize the goal isn’t uniqueness. It’s competitiveness.

Who is Tim Herbig?

As a Product Management Coach, I guide Product Teams to measure the real progress of their evidence-informed decisions.

I focus on better practices to connect the dots of Product Strategy, Product OKRs, and Product Discovery.

Product Practice Newsletter

1 tip & 3 resources per week to improve your Strategy, OKRs, and Discovery practices in less than 5 minutes. Explore my new book on realprogressbook.com

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