Product Adoption
Move people from aware to active, from active to habitual, and from habitual to
evangelical — across consumer, B2B, internal-tool, and public-service contexts.
This skill diagnoses adoption problems and designs adoption plans anchored in
evidence rather than marketing assumptions.
When to Load
| Trigger |
What's Needed |
| Diagnose low activation or time-to-value |
references/adoption-lifecycle-concepts.md |
| Design an adoption or rollout plan |
templates/adoption-plan.md |
| Diagnose a specific adoption problem |
templates/activation-time-to-value-diagnostic.md |
| Segment users into rollout cohorts |
templates/segmentation-and-rollout-record.md |
| Review sustained use after launch |
templates/sustained-use-review.md |
| Handle non-SaaS contexts |
references/non-saas-adoption-contexts.md |
| Design behavior change or education |
references/behavior-change-and-education.md |
When Not to Use
This skill does not own:
- Acquisition campaigns, paid marketing, or conversion funnel optimization — these belong to
go-to-market (see ../go-to-market/SKILL.md).
- Product-analytics instrumentation — belongs to
product-analytics-and-measurement (prose reference only; skill not yet landed).
- Customer-success account management, renewal management, or health scoring — belongs to
conditional-customer-success (prose reference only; skill not yet landed).
File Map
| File |
Purpose |
Load when |
| references/discovery-brief.md |
Maps existing GTM/acquisition material, states ownership boundaries |
Required context |
| references/adoption-lifecycle-concepts.md |
Distinguishes acquisition, activation, adoption, retention, expansion |
Diagnosing stage confusion |
| references/non-saas-adoption-contexts.md |
Internal-tool, public-service, consumer, and B2B patterns |
Non-SaaS product |
| references/behavior-change-and-education.md |
Behavior-change frameworks, in-product education, accessibility-first adoption |
Designing onboarding, education |
| templates/adoption-plan.md |
End-to-end adoption plan with evidence gates |
Planning a launch |
| templates/activation-time-to-value-diagnostic.md |
Structured activation diagnostic |
Low activation signal |
| templates/segmentation-and-rollout-record.md |
Cohort segmentation with evidence decision points |
Rolling out to cohorts |
| templates/sustained-use-review.md |
Post-launch adoption review |
Evaluating adoption health |
Core Methodology
The Adoption Pipeline (Five Distinct Stages)
ACQUISITION → ACTIVATION → ADOPTION → RETENTION → EXPANSION
| Stage |
Definition |
Owned by |
This skill's role |
| Acquisition |
User arrives at the product |
go-to-market |
Does NOT own. Consumes context. |
| Activation |
User completes first meaningful outcome ("aha moment") |
product-adoption |
Owns. |
| Adoption |
User forms a habit; product becomes regular workflow |
product-adoption |
Owns. |
| Retention |
User stays and returns over time |
Shared with product-lifecycle-learning |
Consumes retention signals. |
| Expansion |
User deepens engagement |
product-adoption (feature-discovery) + conditional-customer-success (account-side) |
Owns feature-discovery. |
Evidence-Based Decision Points
| Decision |
Evidence Signal |
Rule |
| Proceed |
Activation rate >= threshold, all cohorts |
Green-light expansion |
| Pause |
Activation rate < threshold in any cohort, or negative trend |
Halt, diagnose, narrow |
| Stop |
Sustained below-threshold, 2+ remediation attempts failed |
Stop, route to lifecycle-learning |
| Accelerate |
Activation > 2x threshold, sustained 2+ cycles |
Increase cohort size |
| Redesign onboarding |
Drop-off > 50% in first-run or TTV > 2x target |
Redesign, re-test small cohort |
Non-SaaS Support
Explicitly supports: internal tools, public services, consumer (non-subscription), B2B (non-SaaS).
Does not assume NPS, conversion rates, or MRR benchmarks are universal.
See references/non-saas-adoption-contexts.md.
Connecting Adoption Evidence
- Product analytics and measurement — Consumes adoption evidence.
product-analytics-and-measurement (prose) defines instrumentation.
- Customer success — Informs success playbooks.
conditional-customer-success (prose) owns account-level response.
- Lifecycle learning — Sustained-use reviews feed
product-lifecycle-learning (prose).
- Product roadmapping and portfolio — Pause/stop decisions feed
product-roadmapping-and-portfolio (prose).
Output Contract
- Completed diagnostic or plan from relevant template
- Evidence-gate decisions with cohort breakdowns
- Explicit statement of which adoption stage(s) in scope and delegated
Related Skills
- ../go-to-market/SKILL.md — Owns acquisition, PLG metrics.
product-analytics-and-measurement — Owns instrumentation (prose reference).conditional-customer-success — Owns account-level intervention (prose reference).product-lifecycle-learning — Receives sustained-use review records (prose reference).product-roadmapping-and-portfolio — Receives pause/stop evidence (prose reference).
