| name | product-adoption |
| description | Diagnose and design product adoption for onboarding, activation, behavior change, feature discovery, rollout, and sustained use after launch. Covers consumer, B2B, internal-tool, and public-service contexts with evidence-based decision points and cohort segmentation. Does not own acquisition campaigns or marketing conversion (routes to go-to-market), product-analytics instrumentation (routes to product-analytics-and-measurement), or customer-success account management and health scoring (routes to conditional-customer-success). |
| license | MIT |
| metadata | {"tags":"product-adoption, onboarding, activation, behavior-change, feature-discovery, rollout, sustained-use, time-to-value, cohort-segmentation, internal-tools, public-services, customer-education, adoption-evidence"} |
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).
