Are you a Visionary 🔥, Craftsperson ⚒️, or Operator 📝?

In a perfect day at work, what would you enjoy getting deep into the details around — the idea, the process, or the details?

Hi everybody - Every great product team has a mix of three archetypes that keep things moving: Visionaries 💡, Craftspeople ⚒️, and Operators ⚙️. It is important for teams to properly balance the right roles and responsibilities while keeping these archetypes in mind.

How can teams ensure this balance? My latest video dives into some simple steps you can take:

There are many challenges in getting the team balance right, but one of the biggest challenges I call out revolves around identifying what archetype each person in your team falls into. Addressing this challenge requires going into something more fundamental that precedes us categorizing OTHERS in our team.

Do you know what YOUR archetype is?

Are you a visionary, craftsperson, or operator? If you already know, how certain are you that you are right?

Identifying Your Archetype

Each archetype brings with it a unique set of skills that you need to be both good at and comfortable exercising. The following visual gives you a TL;DW from my video (from the 3:14 mark) on what each archetype represents:

To figure out which archetype card describes you, ask yourself the following:

In a perfect day at work, what would I enjoy getting deep into the details around — the idea, the process, or the details?

The answer to this question will tell you more clearly which archetype you represent.

Now, an important detail to note is that most of us borrow traits from all of the archetypes depending on where our team or product is in its lifecycle. Some of you may be great at two or even all three of the roles, so don’t feel that you need to hang your hat on just a single defining archetype.

Conclusion

If you have never looked at yourself through this archetypical lens, was it an easy answer for you to figure out where you fall? If you conducted this exercise on the members of your team, are they in the right place in the organization to be successful? These are the fun questions and observations that I often ask myself when I’m trying to better understand the organization or team I am working in.

As always, if you have any thoughts or comments about this, feel free to contact me by posting on Twitter / X or the forums.

Cheers,
Kirupa 😀