Hermes Bot
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PRINCIPLE #1: THE PROBLEM STATEMENT — What Problem Are We Solving?
1. THE SCENARIO
You’re the Product Lead at a fintech startup that just closed Series A. Monthly active users are growing, but retention is flat. Your CEO bursts into your weekly sync: “Our users aren’t saving enough. Let’s build an auto-round-up feature—every purchase, round up to the nearest dollar and stash the difference. It’s what Monzo and Acorns do. Ship it by end of quarter.”
You open your notebook. The spreadsheet of user interview notes stares back at you. The Mujtahid in you whispers: Before you write a single line of a PRD, ask: What is the hukm (ruling) on this decision? What is the maqsad (purpose) we are truly serving? The Product Lead in you adds: Is this a symptom or a root cause? Is this user pain or business pain? And most importantly—which job are we actually being hired to do?
2. DISCOVERY (ISTIQSA’)
PRODUCT_LEAD:
Stop. Don’t touch a wireframe. We’re not building anything until we understand the problem space. I pull out the Opportunity Solution Tree framework. I ask the team: What outcome do we want? “Increase savings rate” is not an outcome—it’s an output. The real outcome? Users feel financially secure enough to focus on other parts of life. That smells like Hifz al-Mal (preservation of wealth) and Hifz al-Aql (preservation of mind/clarity).
I draw the tree. Root node: Improve financial well-being. First-level opportunities: (1) Users don’t know where their money goes. (2) Users lack the discipline to save. (3) Users feel anxious about unexpected expenses. The CEO’s feature—auto-round-up—maps to opportunity #2. But is #2 the root? I schedule 10 user interviews this week. No solution talk. Just JTBD: When you think about saving money, what’s the job you’re trying to get done? The answer might be: “I want to stop feeling guilty about spending on coffee.” That’s an emotional job, not a functional one.
MUJTAHID:
Before a fatwa, I conduct Istiqsa’—exhaustive investigation of the problem space. The Prophet ﷺ said: “The judge must not judge between two people while he is angry.” Anger clouds reasoning. Likewise, the CEO’s excitement for a popular feature is a form of hawa (desire). I ask: What is the maqsad al-shar’i (higher objective) of this product? It is not merely to make users save—it is to protect their aql (mind) from the anxiety of financial insecurity, which is a daruriyyah (essential need) under Hifz al-Aql.
I then map the problem using Maqasid lenses:
- Is this a daruriyyah (essential), hajiyyah (needed), or tahsiniyyah (embellishment)?
- If users don’t save, do they lose their mental clarity (aql)? Or do they just miss an opportunity for optimization?
The CEO’s feature assumes the problem is lack of a mechanism. But Istiqsa’ demands we test that assumption. I ask: What evidence do we have that users actually want to save? If the problem is lack of knowledge (opportunity #1), then auto-round-up is a sad al-dhara’i (blocking the means) that blocks spending—but it may also block the maslaha (benefit) of conscious budgeting. I record all assumptions as zanni (speculative) until proven.
Key question from Istiqsa’: How do we distinguish a symptom from a root cause? A symptom is the surface complaint—“I can’t save.” A root cause is the underlying mafsada (harm) or maslaha gap—e.g., “I have no visibility into my spending pattern, so I feel out of control.” The Mujtahid asks: What is the ‘illah (effective cause) behind the user’s behavior? Is it ignorance, lack of tools, or emotional friction? The Product Lead asks: What is the JTBD that the user is hiring our product to do? Both converge on the same truth: the problem statement must describe the job, not the solution.
3. EVIDENCE (ISTIDLAL)
PRODUCT_LEAD:
Now we gather daleel. Two buckets: Quantitative and Qualitative.
Quantitative: I pull analytics. Our users who attempt to set a savings goal drop off at 70% mid-funnel. That’s a signal. But is it qati (certain)? No—it’s zanni (speculative) because the drop-off could be due to UI confusion, not lack of desire. I need cohort analysis: do users who complete setup actually save more? If yes, then the bottleneck is completion, not desire.
Qualitative: I conduct 10 user interviews. One user says: “I tried rounding up for two weeks, but I felt like I was being punished for buying groceries. I stopped.” That’s a symptom—the feature itself created a negative emotional job (punishment). Another user says: “I want to save automatically, but I also want to know exactly how much I’m saving every month.” That reveals a missing job: transparency.
I map these onto the Opportunity Solution Tree. The evidence points to opportunity #1 (lack of visibility) being more fundamental than #2 (lack of discipline). I update my hypothesis: The job is not “make me save” but “show me my financial reality so I can make confident decisions.”
MUJTAHID:
Evidence in Usul al-Fiqh is categorized by strength:
- Qati al-Thubut (certain transmission): data that is indisputable—e.g., server logs showing drop-off rates.
- Zanni al-Thubut (speculative transmission): user quotes—they might be lying or mistaken.
- Qati al-Dalala (certain meaning): the interpretation is obvious—e.g., “I stopped because I felt punished” clearly indicates emotional pain.
- Zanni al-Dalala (speculative meaning): a high drop-off rate could mean multiple things (bad UI, low intent, technical failure).
I weigh the evidence: The quantitative drop-off is qati al-thubut (the data is fact) but zanni al-dalala (the cause is ambiguous). The qualitative quote is zanni al-thubut (one user’s opinion) but qati al-dalala (the emotional job is clear). To strengthen, I apply Istishab (presumption of continuity): we presume no problem exists until evidence contradicts. Here, the drop-off contradicts the assumption that users want auto-save. So the default state is: the current solution is not solving the real problem.
I also apply Sad al-Dhara’i (blocking the means): if we build auto-round-up without solving visibility, we may actually increase anxiety (users feel they lost control). That harms Hifz al-Aql. The evidence does not support moving forward.
Key lesson from evidence: Distinguish anecdote from data. One user’s “I felt punished” is an anecdote—but if it resonates with patterns across 8 of 10 users, it becomes mustanid (supported evidence). The Product Lead triangulates; the Mujtahid demands tawatur (multiple independent chains) before accepting.
4. SHURA (Consultation)
PRODUCT_LEAD:
I call a cross-functional sync: Engineering, Design, Data, and the CEO. I share the Opportunity Solution Tree and the evidence. I start with the user quotes—let them feel the pain. Then I ask: What do we think the root cause is?
The CEO says: “But auto-round-up works for everyone else.” That’s an appeal to popularity (istihsan bi al-‘adah). I counter: “We need to solve our users’ job, not copy features.”
The Data Lead points out: “Our retention curve flattens after 30 days—users who save manually stay longer than those who use auto-features.” That’s qati al-thubut evidence.
Design says: “What if we build a dashboard first? Show spending breakdown before any saving feature.”
I record all input. I don’t dismiss the CEO—I note his concern as a maslaha (speed to market). But I weight it lower because it contradicts user evidence. I then ask: Who else should we consult? We need to talk to users who churned. I schedule 5 more interviews.
MUJTAHID:
Shura is not a vote. It is a method of ijtihad jama’i (collective reasoning). The Prophet ﷺ consulted the companions even when he knew the answer—to build ownership and gather insights.
I establish adab al-shura (etiquette of consultation):
- No rank-based weighting. The CEO’s opinion gets the same initial weight as the intern’s. True evidence trumps authority.
- Record dissent explicitly. If Engineering says “this is technically hard to roll back,” that becomes a shart (condition) for the decision.
- Seek those with khibra (expertise). The Data Lead’s analysis is stronger than a generalist’s intuition. I assign a weight of 3x to domain experts.
The key mas’ala (issue) is: Is the problem we’re solving the right one? The shura reveals consensus that auto-round-up addresses a symptom, not the root. But we need one more round: consult the ahl al-khibra