Missing Middle
A term from Melissa Perri describing the gap between executive-level strategic intent and team-level execution in product organisations. The executives have a strategy; the teams have tickets; nobody is translating between the two.
The symptom is familiar: executives who do not know what product is doing, teams who cannot explain why their current work connects to company goals, and roadmaps that are lists of features rather than expressions of strategy. When Perri asks teams ‘what is the most important thing you could be doing and why?’ and the answers do not ladder to company goals, the Missing Middle is the diagnosis.
The misdiagnosis
Most organisations that have a Missing Middle believe their problem is in training or talent. ‘I have met a lot of organisations that think most of their issues are in the training of their people. And 99% of the time I see that it is actually in the way that they are setting their goals and deploying their strategy.’ The instinct to run PM training programmes does not address the underlying structural failure; the goals and communication chain need to be rebuilt first.
Causes
- Absence of a Chief Product Officer (or a CPO who lacks the financial and communication skills to translate between board-level priorities and product decisions).
- Strategy set at executive level without a deployment mechanism that converts it into team-level goals.
- OKRs or roadmaps used as coordination tools rather than as expressions of prioritised bets.
- Product managers who are resourceful executors but not empowered to ask why.
Closing the gap
Perri’s diagnostic: ask teams what the most important thing they could be doing is, and why. If the answer does not trace back to a company priority, the gap exists. The fix requires:
- A CPO (or equivalent) with the authority and skill to convert strategy into product direction.
- Goals that ladder explicitly: company goal → product bet → team metric → sprint work.
- Communication discipline between product and the executive team, particularly regarding what product is doing and why.