The friction points inside today's product teams

Speed is one of the most consistently challenging parts of modern product development. Many respondents say that getting products out on time remains difficult, even when teams feel mature in other areas. It is one of the clearest signals that delivery pressure and real-world constraints often pull in different directions.

This challenge becomes even more noticeable when looking at release frequency. Most teams agree that shipping updates regularly is important for product health, but far fewer say they manage to release predictably without unnecessary blockers. It shows a gap between what teams believe good practice looks like and what their current structures allow them to achieve.

The reason for this gap is not a mystery. Agility on paper does not always translate into momentum in practice. Legacy systems, slow approvals, unclear ownership, and shifting priorities all contribute to delays. These issues can accumulate quietly until they affect the team’s ability to make steady progress.

 

For organizations with feature-driven cultures, the pattern is even more pronounced. Frequent changes in direction make predictability harder, and roadmaps can become reactive rather than strategic. The fastest teams are often not the ones that move with the most urgency, but the ones that have enough clarity and stability to make consistent progress.

Innovation is where the cultural divide becomes most visible. Fewer than half of respondents say their teams make space to test new ideas outside the core roadmap. Among delivery-centric organizations, that share drops dramatically.

Even more revealing is how some teams view innovation itself. Around a third consider it “not important” to their organization — one of the highest disengagement signals in the entire survey. When innovation is treated as optional, improvement becomes accidental.

 

Teams that are able to explore problems before choosing solutions tend to see clearer patterns and make stronger product decisions. Taking time to understand the context, the user needs, and the shape of the opportunity helps reduce rework later in the process and gives teams a more stable foundation to build on.

This habit of slowing down at the right moments often carries over into other parts of the team’s work. Teams that invest time in discovery are also more likely to pause, review, and adjust their own practices. This willingness to reflect creates a healthier working rhythm and makes it easier for teams to improve how they operate over time.

 

Across the survey responses, this connection appears again and again. When teams make room for curiosity and reflection, the quality of their decisions improves, and their ability to adapt strengthens. It becomes a small but reliable advantage in a landscape where clarity is often the hardest thing to maintain.

Artificial intelligence has become a natural part of everyday product work. Nearly every respondent says they use AI in some part of their individual workflow, most commonly for tasks such as design exploration, writing, and early concept development. These uses tend to support the creative and exploratory stages of the process, where teams benefit from speed and variety of input.

As teams look ahead, their expectations shift toward more analytical and operational uses of AI. Many believe that AI will become a larger part of how they interpret data, identify patterns, and support customer-facing interactions. This suggests a move from local, individual uses of AI toward capabilities that sit deeper in the product surface and the development workflow.

Taken together, these trends mark the early stages of a transition toward AI-enabled craft. Teams are beginning to see AI not only as a tool that produces output faster, but as something that can strengthen the quality of their decisions and expand what they are able to deliver. The challenge is no longer about using AI, but about weaving it into the work in a way that supports clarity, responsibility, and long-term product value.

Across industries, two worlds are emerging. Large organizations are defined by collaboration and complexity. Their challenges center on alignment, dependencies, and legacy systems. Smaller companies, meanwhile, move quickly but struggle with limited time, talent, and budget.

 

What unites them is the growing understanding that maturity is no longer about process adherence or technical excellence. It is about cultural health: the trust, alignment, and shared behaviors that enable consistent, high-quality delivery. When teams focus on the outcomes that matter — user impact, measurable business results, and continuous improvement — maturity follows naturally.

The survey confirms what we see every day at Framna: a healthy product culture is one of the strongest predictors of success. When teams put outcomes at the center, measure what matters, and make room for innovation, they do not just deliver faster — they deliver better.

 

The culture that drives a product organization is the canary in the mine for its success. It signals when direction is clear or clouded, when focus is strong or fading. And when that culture is built on clarity, collaboration, and curiosity, it becomes the greatest competitive edge.

 

Because in the end, teams do not simply win by shipping. They win by product.