Product Operating Model Series: Principles over Process

Issue #225

Destare Foundation

Alex Dziewulska

Katarzyna Dahlke

, and 3 others

Nov 11, 2025

∙ Paid

In today's edition, among other things:

💜 Editor’s Note: We’ve Built a Cathedral of Frameworks and Forgotten How to Ask Why
💜 Product Operating Model Series: Principles over Process

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DeStaRe Foundation

Editor’s Note by Alex 💜

We’ve Built a Cathedral of Frameworks and Forgotten How to Ask Why

I watched a senior PM last week spend forty minutes walking stakeholders through his Opportunity Solution Tree. Beautiful work—color-coded branches, clear hypotheses, perfectly structured. Then someone asked a simple question: “But why do users actually struggle with this?”

He paused. Looked at his framework. And admitted he hadn’t talked to a user in three months.

We’ve done something remarkable in product management: we’ve taken the most natural human behavior—curiosity—and buried it under so much methodology that we’ve forgotten how to just ask “why?” We have frameworks for framing frameworks. We workshop our problem statements. We template our discovery processes.

I’m hosting a mastermind on problem framing at this month’s Między Projektami, and preparing forced me to confront something uncomfortable: the neuroscience of effective problem framing points toward radical simplicity, yet our industry keeps building more elaborate scaffolding. We’ve convinced ourselves that sophisticated frameworks equal sophisticated thinking.

The research tells a different story.

The most powerful problem-framing tool isn’t a framework at all—it’s curiosity. And we’re systematically training it out of our teams.

Let me tell you what happens in your brain when you get genuinely curious about a problem. It’s not what the framework evangelists would have you believe.

When you ask a question driven by authentic curiosity, your brain releases dopamine—the same neurotransmitter associated with reward and motivation. Neuroscientist Charan Ranganath’s research at UC Davis revealed that curiosity activates the hippocampus and the reward circuit, putting your brain into a heightened state of learning and information retention. You’re literally neurologically primed to absorb and synthesize information when curiosity kicks in.

But here’s what’s fascinating: this only happens with genuine curiosity, not performative questioning. When you’re mechanically completing a framework—dutifully filling in boxes because the template demands it—you’re activating entirely different neural pathways. You’re in execution mode, not discovery mode. Your prefrontal cortex is managing compliance with process, not exploring possibilities.

George Loewenstein’s information gap theory explains why curiosity is so neurologically powerful. When we recognize a gap between what we know and what we want to know, we experience that gap as a psychological tension—a cognitive itch that demands scratching. This tension drives genuine inquiry. It makes us persistent. It makes us dig deeper.

The elaborate frameworks we’ve built? They promise to eliminate this discomfort by providing structure. But in doing so, they eliminate the very neurological state that makes problem framing effective.

Watch a four-year-old encounter something new. They don’t pull out a framework. They ask “why?” relentlessly, following each answer with another “why?” until they’ve traced the problem to its roots or exhausted their patient adult.

This isn’t accidental—it’s optimal neurocognitive behavior for learning. Developmental psychology research shows that children’s persistent questioning isn’t annoying behavior to be trained away; it’s sophisticated cognitive machinery for building causal models of the world.

Then we become professionals. We go to workshops. We learn that “proper” problem framing requires structured approaches, specific templates, and documented processes. We become embarrassed by simple questions. We worry that asking “why?” five times makes us seem unsophisticated.

So we reach for the framework instead.

The problem? Cognitive load research reveals that frameworks consume working memory resources that could be spent on understanding. When you’re trying to remember whether you’re supposed to fill in the “pains” section or the “gains” section of your value proposition canvas, you’re not thinking deeply about the actual problem. You’re thinking about the tool.

John Sweller’s foundational work on cognitive load shows that poorly managed complexity during problem exploration can impede learning and schema development. The mental effort spent on “doing the framework correctly”—what researchers call extraneous cognitive load—is effort not spent on understanding the problem deeply. It’s not that all frameworks are bad, but that we often introduce procedural complexity before we’ve done the curiosity work.

Here’s the psychology behind our framework fetish: complexity feels like expertise.

But here’s what the research actually reveals: it’s not the experts using complexity—it’s those who feel they lack legitimacy. A 2020 study analyzing over 64,000 dissertations found that researchers from lower-ranked institutions used significantly more jargon than those from elite schools. The pattern is clear: people who lack status use complexity to compensate for insecurity.

High-status experts? They use simpler, clearer language. They don’t need complexity to signal expertise—they already have it.

This creates a paradox in product management. As we professionalize our field and build “PM expertise,” those who feel least secure in their role reach for the most elaborate frameworks. The frameworks provide a visible credential: “I know the proper methodology.” But the actual experts—those who’ve internalized problem-framing through years of practice—often return to simple, persistent questioning.

Cognitive researchers Leonid Rozenblit and Frank Keil documented a related phenomenon: the illusion of explanatory depth. We believe we understand complex systems far better than we actually do. When forced to explain our understanding in simple terms, the gaps become painfully obvious.

Frameworks provide cover for this illusion. They let us gesture toward sophisticated thinking without actually having to demonstrate it. “We used the Opportunity Solution Tree methodology” sounds more impressive than “we kept asking why until we understood the root cause.”

But research on insight generation reveals something crucial: breakthrough understanding—those “aha!” moments that reframe problems entirely—involves different neural processing patterns than deliberate analysis. Studies by Kounios and Beeman show insights engage internally-focused attention and right hemisphere semantic processing, creating conditions analytical frameworks can’t replicate. You don’t framework your way to insight. You make space for it.

Sakichi Toyoda didn’t develop the “Five Whys” in the 1930s because he thought five was a magic number. He recognized that most problems become clear when you persistently ask why they occurred, tracing each answer to its cause, until you reach root cause. Taiichi Ohno later systematized and popularized this method as part of the Toyota Production System.

The brilliance wasn’t the number—it was the recognition that genuine curiosity, systematically applied, outperforms complex analysis.

Toyota’s approach succeeded not because it was sophisticated but because it was simple enough that anyone on the production floor could use it. The machine operator could ask why. The supervisor could ask why. The executive could ask why. No special training required. No templates to complete. Just authentic inquiry.

Contrast this with modern product management, where problem framing has become a specialized skill requiring workshops, certifications, and tool subscriptions. We’ve professionalized curiosity right out of existence.

Research on organizational learning reveals why this matters. When problem-solving methods are accessible to everyone, organizations build collective sense-making capability. When methods require specialized expertise, you create bottlenecks and dependencies. The PM becomes the designated “problem framer,” and everyone else stops asking questions.

Here’s what recent research on interrogative strategies reveals: the quality of problem framing correlates not with the sophistication of your methodology but with the quality of your questions.

Studies analyzing thousands of problem-solving sessions across domains identified consistent patterns in effective inquiry:

Specificity beats abstraction: “Why did this specific user struggle here?” outperforms “What are the user pain points?”
Causal chains beat categories: Following “why” to its roots works better than sorting observations into buckets
Tension recognition beats satisfaction: Noticing what doesn’t make sense drives deeper than confirming what does
Naive questions beat expert assumptions: “Dumb” questions from a genuine curiosity often surface insights expert questions miss

None of this requires frameworks. It requires intellectual humility and genuine curiosity about understanding rather than categorizing.

Neuroscientist Stuart Firestein’s work on scientific inquiry is instructive here. He argues that science advances not through answers but through better questions. The purpose of investigation is to generate more sophisticated ignorance—to understand what you don’t know with greater precision.

Product teams optimizing for frameworks are optimizing for answers. They want to complete the template, check the box, move to solutions. But effective problem framing is about achieving more sophisticated ignorance—understanding the problem space with greater precision before attempting solutions.

The most damning evidence against framework-dependent problem framing? They fail precisely when problems are most complex and ambiguous.

Research on decision-making under uncertainty shows that rigid methodologies break down when facing novel situations that don’t fit template categories. The framework assumes you can sort your observations into predefined boxes, but breakthrough problems resist categorization.

When Netflix analyzed viewing behavior to inform original content investment, the breakthrough insight didn’t come from completing frameworks. Reed Hastings and his team discovered through data that users were binge-watching entire seasons—staying up until 3 AM to finish shows. This contradicted everything traditional television understood about serialized content consumption. That insight, driven by curiosity about the gap between expected behavior and actual behavior, transformed how Netflix approached content creation and release strategy.

The pattern repeats: genuine problem understanding comes from curiosity-driven inquiry, not framework completion.

Here’s what I’m proposing for our mastermind at piwo między projektami: What if we completely banned frameworks for one problem-framing session?

No templates. No canvases. No trees. Just one rule: You have to keep asking “why?” until you either understand the root cause or recognize that you need specific information you don’t have.

The hypothesis: Most problems product teams face don’t require sophisticated frameworks. They require unsophisticated curiosity—the willingness to ask obvious questions, follow boring threads, and admit when you don’t understand something.

This isn’t anti-intellectual. It’s recognizing what cognitive science tells us: genuine understanding emerges from engaged inquiry, not procedural compliance. The neuroscience of insight generation supports radical simplicity over methodological complexity.

Here’s the uncomfortable truth we need to confront: We’ve built elaborate problem-framing frameworks because they make us feel sophisticated. They let us demonstrate expertise through complexity rather than through insight.

But neuroscience reveals that your brain doesn’t distinguish between sophisticated-looking frameworks and genuinely sophisticated thinking. It only recognizes authentic curiosity—the dopamine-releasing, hippocampus-activating state that puts you in optimal learning mode.

The frameworks aren’t wrong—they can be useful scaffolding for organizing discoveries after you’ve made them. But they’ve become primary tools instead of secondary supports. We complete the template before we’ve done the curiosity work.

Toyota’s Five Whys works not because five is magic but because persistent “why” questioning, driven by genuine curiosity about causation, reliably surfaces root causes. The sophistication isn’t in the framework—it’s in the intellectual humility to keep asking when you don’t understand.

Children ask “why” relentlessly not because they lack sophistication but because they haven’t yet learned to pretend they understand when they don’t. They haven’t yet learned that appearing knowledgeable matters more than being curious.

Let me be direct about what’s actually happening: We reach for frameworks because asking “why?” requires admitting we don’t know. It requires intellectual humility that feels professionally risky.

When you pull out the Opportunity Solution Tree template, you look prepared and methodical. When you keep asking “why?” like a persistent four-year-old, you risk looking naive. When you complete the JTBD framework, you demonstrate fluency with product management methodology. When you admit “I still don’t understand why this is happening,” you demonstrate uncertainty.

Professional culture punishes uncertainty and rewards the appearance of methodological rigor. So we reach for frameworks that provide structure and legitimacy even when simple curiosity would serve us better.

The research is clear: Complex frameworks consume cognitive resources that could be spent on understanding. They activate compliance-oriented neural pathways rather than discovery-oriented ones. They provide false confidence through procedural completion while missing insights that emerge from genuine curiosity.

Here’s my editorial position: Frameworks should be earned, not defaulted to.

Before reaching for any problem-framing methodology, teams should be required to demonstrate they’ve exhausted simple curiosity. Ask “why?” at least five times following causal chains. Interview users with nothing but genuine questions. Explore the problem space with intellectual humility.

Only after you’ve done this groundwork—only after you’ve activated those curiosity-driven neural pathways and achieved more sophisticated ignorance—should you reach for frameworks to organize what you’ve learned.

The sophistication isn’t in the methodology. It’s in the quality of your curiosity. It’s in your willingness to ask obvious questions. It’s in your ability to notice what doesn’t make sense and investigate rather than categorize.

At this month’s mastermind, we’re going to test this hypothesis. We’re going to frame problems using nothing but curiosity and see what happens when we remove the methodological safety blanket.

I predict we’ll surface insights that traditional frameworks would have obscured—not because the frameworks are wrong, but because they provide structure too early, before genuine understanding emerges from authentic inquiry.

So here’s my challenge to you, whether you join us at piwo między projektami or not: The next time you face a problem that demands framing, resist the urge to reach for your favorite framework.

Instead, ask “why?” And when you get an answer, ask “why?” again. Keep going until you either understand the root cause or recognize exactly what information you’re missing.

Notice what happens in your brain. Notice when you feel the urge to categorize rather than investigate. Notice when you want to complete a template rather than follow your curiosity.

The neuroscience suggests this simple approach will put you in a better cognitive state for genuine problem understanding than any framework. The psychology suggests most of us have trained this capability out of ourselves in favor of methodological complexity that signals expertise without requiring insight.

Maybe—just maybe—the most sophisticated thing we can do as product leaders is rediscover the radical power of simply being curious.

The frameworks will be there when you need them. But first, try asking why.

Join us at Między Projektami on November 17th for a mastermind session on problem framing where we’ll test these ideas in practice. Come prepared to be curious, not methodical. The beer, fortunately, requires no framework.

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