The Product Architect

Framework · list

Role Friction Map

A diagnostic for testing whether friction comes from role scope, environment, capability, or the evidence available.

Framework · discipline

Role Friction Map

A diagnostic for testing whether friction comes from role scope, environment, capability, or the evidence available.

  1. What am I hired to do?

    Name the official shape of your role: what is assigned, rewarded, and expected.

  2. What am I capable of seeing?

    Name the product questions you notice, even when they are not formally yours.

  3. What do I keep wanting to influence?

    Name the decisions you cannot stop caring about and the direction your work is pulling you.

  4. What am I not invited to touch yet?

    Name where you have opinions but no authority, or where you are brought in too late.

  5. Where do I feel most alive in the work?

    Name the moments where your attention sharpens, then test whether the pattern survives changes in workload, environment, and responsibility.

Use the sequence before deciding whether the system should act.

What it helps you see

It exposes the questions or checks that need to be answered before the product behavior can be trusted.

How to use it

Write a short answer next to each line, then compare attention with fatigue, context, demonstrated capability, and evidence. The output is a diagnosis to test, not proof that a role has been outgrown.

Use it when

Use this when a product question in Introduction — When the Role Stops Fitting needs structure before it becomes a screen, roadmap item, or portfolio claim.

Practice prompt

Choose a real product, project, or career decision and answer the framework's items in order. Carry forward the answer that changes the next move.

Private to this device

Source chapter

This framework was authored in Introduction — When the Role Stops Fitting. Read the chapter for the full argument and the worked examples that produced this shape.