In her book Escaping the Build Trap, Melissa Perri outlines five ways to break free from this trap.
#1 Understand That Shipping Is Not the Same as Progress
If you can’t clearly articulate the outcome you’re driving, you’re probably just building. Outputs are things like features, releases, and tickets. Outcomes, on the other hand, reflect customer behavior changes and business impact. Real progress happens when you define clear success metrics for a launch and track their movement in the desired direction.
#2 Product Strategy Is a Set of Choices
Instead of asking “What should we build next?”, ask “Which outcome are we trying to influence, and what’s the smallest bet we can place?” Strategy is as much about what you say no to as what you choose to pursue. A strong product strategy clearly defines which customers matter most, which problems are worth solving, which metrics define success, and which bets you are not making.
#3 PMs Are Not Feature Managers
PMs don’t own roadmaps, they own results. In the build trap, PMs turn into backlog groomers, delivery coordinators, and feature translators. In a truly product-led organization, however, PMs are responsible for problem discovery, exploring options, and owning outcomes. Making this shift requires deeper customer understanding, comfort with ambiguity, and strong partnerships with design, engineering, and data teams.
#4 Teams Need Context, Not Tasks
Leaders should provide teams with the goal, the constraints, and the why; and trust them to figure out the how. When teams understand the business problem, the customer pain, and the success metrics, they make better decisions than any roadmap ever could.
#5 Escaping the Build Trap Is a Journey, Not a Switch
Escaping the build trap requires holistic change involving shifting incentives, rethinking success metrics, letting go of false certainty, and retraining stakeholders to think in outcomes. This transition doesn’t happen overnight. PMs should take small, deliberate steps, such as rewriting roadmap items as outcomes, tying every initiative to a measurable goal, and asking “What problem are we solving?”
For more real-world examples of how these learnings come to life, read Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri