Product-ivity
How to Unlock What Really Matters
TLDR
Productivity isn’t about cramming more into your day — it’s about unlocking more of what matters. As product people we aspire to deliver the biggest outcomes for the least input, so this is for you.
This article explores how to improve productivity across multiple levels: yourself and your team, your organisation, and your customers and country.
You’ll learn practical tools, real examples, and a simple 3-step method: Analyse → Understand → Act.
Introduction: Productivity Isn’t Optional
Confession time: my first "product" job wasn’t building apps or websites — it was in Product-ion. I started as a Manufacturing Engineer after completing a very snappily titled degree in Manufacturing Systems Engineering with Electronics (Sandwich).
It was there I first learned lean, agile, and continuous improvement — all aimed at one goal: better productivity.
Later, moving into telecoms, financial services, and tech, I noticed something odd.
People talked about outputs, deliverables, even velocity — but rarely about true productivity. Inputs, outputs, flow, constraints? Not much discussion.
Yet productivity is everywhere. Analysts study revenue per employee. Companies quietly outsource to boost ratios. But at a team or personal level? It often goes unspoken.
Today, with national productivity growth stalling across the UK and other countries, the need to reconnect with these ideas is greater than ever.
This article is a call to curiosity — and action. We'll look at how
You & your team
Your organisation
Your customers & country
can rediscover the art of productivity using real tools and lived experience. The method throughout is simple: Analyse → Understand → Act.
Let's begin small.
Me and My Team: Personal & Team Productivity
It’s easy to think of productivity as a corporate idea. But it starts much closer to home: your laptop, your calendar, your energy.
When you and your team become more productive — without burning out — everything else gets easier.
Step 1: Analyse – Measure Inputs and Outputs
"You can't improve what you don't measure."
Track your time for a week using an app or notebook.
Define your outputs: what are you really producing?
Notice input costs: what drains or energises you?
Personal Story:
When I logged my working hours, I expected meetings to be the main drain. Instead, dozens of “quick tasks” — Teams notifications, messages and emails — ate hours daily. This same tracking also revealed something unexpected: a quiet lunchtime walk was my most productive problem-solving time.
Step 2: Understand – Diagnose Productivity Drivers
"High output per hour isn’t about speed — it’s about working on the right things."
Value alignment: Are your tasks meaningful or just noise?
Energy mapping: When are you most focused?
Opportunity cost: What are you giving up by saying yes?
Key Questions:
What’s my most valuable work?
What drains me?
When am I in flow?
Step 3: Act – Improve Through Design
"Improvement isn’t an accident — it’s a system."
Prioritise three must-do tasks daily.
Batch and automate low-value work.
Protect deep work: block 2+ hours of focus time.
Build in recovery: rest boosts output.
Self & Team Productivity Checklist:
✔️ Track time and energy for a week
✔️ Define three top outputs
✔️ Protect deep work time
✔️ Batch and automate low-value tasks
✔️ Celebrate recovery — it’s leverage, not laziness
My Organisation: Scaling Productivity
At the organisational level, every tiny inefficiency is magnified — but so is every tiny improvement.
Your job? Find hidden friction points and fix them systematically.
Step 1: Analyse – Measure Organisational Inputs and Outputs
"You can’t solve what you don’t see."
Map common activities (onboarding, approvals, meetings).
Run time studies to find leakage.
Audit processes for elimination or acceleration.
Personal Story:
At Amex’s new office in Brighton , thousands of hours were lost yearly due to delays at access gates — the servers were thousands of kilometres away. Everyone saw the queues, but no one acted until we measured the cost.
Step 2: Understand – Diagnose Organisational Productivity Drivers
"Systems produce exactly what they are designed to produce — even waste."
Focus where volume, frequency, and pain collide.
Clarify ownership: decision rights speed things up.
Check infrastructure: does it accelerate or hinder?
Key Questions:
What processes cause most frustration?
Where do handoffs cause delays?
Are we measuring what matters, or just what’s easy?
Step 3: Act – Systematically Remove Friction
"Fix the environment, and people will fix the work."
Eliminate high-friction activities.
Streamline workflows and approvals.
Empower teams within clear guardrails.
Automate repetitive work.
Organisation Productivity Checklist:
✔️ Identify the top three time-wastes
✔️ Fix where volume and frustration are highest
✔️ Streamline and shorten workflows
✔️ Invest in acceleration tools
Our Customers and Our Country: The Wider Impact
When you help your customers be more productive, they reward you with loyalty, recommendations, and fewer complaints.
When you help your country become more productive, everyone benefits.
Step 1: Analyse – Measure Customer Inputs and Outputs
"Your product should save your customer time and energy."
Map how long it takes customers to achieve their goals.
Identify pain points where frustration builds.
Score effort: how hard is it to succeed?
Personal Story:
Leading a global billing product, we cut out hours of reconciliation work for thousands of customers. Saving their time grew loyalty — and reduced churn.
Step 2: Understand – Diagnose Customer Productivity Drivers
"Happy customers feel empowered, not exhausted."
Focus on the real job they are trying to do.
Map emotional highs and lows across touchpoints.
Ensure frequent tasks are almost effortless.
Key Questions:
Where are we adding friction instead of removing it?
What is the customer really trying to get done?
How do they feel after using our product?
Step 3: Act – Design for Customer Productivity
"Be the company that gives customers their time back."
Simplify flows: fewer steps, fewer fields.
Pre-empt problems: proactive help before frustration.
Focus effort on core tasks customers perform most.
Customer Productivity Checklist:
✔️ Map critical customer paths
✔️ Remove high-friction points
✔️ Design for emotional wins
✔️ Help customers win back their time
Productivity at a Country Level
At the biggest scale, national productivity is simply the sum of small individual actions.
You can’t fix a country alone — but you can shift the culture:
Talk about productivity openly, what you have done in your org, what you have done for your customers.
Celebrate smart work over hard work.
Model it: effectiveness, not busyness.
A Parting Idea to get you thinking:
Imagine if our transport systems focused not just on speed, but on delivering energised, refreshed commuters and travellers on the way to and from work. How much more could we achieve?
Closing: Your Personal Challenge
Productivity isn’t about doing more — it’s about doing the right things with the least friction and the greatest fulfilment in life and work.
So whether this is for you, your team, your organisation, your customers or bigger horizons:
✔️ Start small.
✔️ Track one week.
✔️ Fix one friction point.
✔️ Create more space to succeed.
It adds up.
Final Framework Summary:
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