Roles in the model

The roles in the model describe functions, not positions. They are based on terms commonly used in practice, but are described in terms of function. One person can hold several roles at the same time; what matters is responsibility in the process, not the job title.

Cross-cutting: overall responsibility

Purpose: Overall responsibility lies with the function that is ultimately accountable for the result and the decisions of a phase. It sets priorities, decides and is accountable for the success or failure of the phase.
Four categories: In each phase it is clear who is accountable for the result, who drives the work, who is consulted for their expertise and who is informed. In each phase, exactly one function is accountable for the result.
Assignment: phases 1 and 9 executive management; phase 2 product management; phases 3 and 4 the person responsible for the offer; phase 5 the person responsible for Marketing as a whole; phases 6 and 7 the person responsible for Sales as a whole, who in phase 7 is also accountable for turnover; phase 8 the head of Delivery, with the areas of specialist responsibility of Delivery and Customer Success.
Rule for all phases: If one of these functions is not filled separately, executive management takes on overall responsibility. It then takes the place of that function rather than acting alongside it.
Distinction: Overall responsibility is not a job title. Those who drive the work do not automatically have overall responsibility, and those who are consulted do not decide.

Product management

Purpose: Ensures that a relevant customer problem can be solved in a way that is sound in substance, deliverable and reproducible.
Responsibilities: understands the customer problem, its context and causes; develops the solution logic and service components; defines scope, non-scope and delivery limits; ensures consistency in substance across all phases; works out the offer together with Marketing in phase 3.
Typical decisions: What do we solve, and what deliberately not? What is deliverable, stable and repeatable? Where do risks and dependencies lie?
Limits: no decisions on prices or discounts; no responsibility for demand or turnover; no marketing messages without coordination.
Typical failure patterns: The product is bent to fit individual customers. Solution details replace an understanding of the problem. Implicit sales promises without a basis in delivery.
In the model: overall responsibility for phase 2; drives phases 1, 2, 3 (with Marketing) and 9; works closely alongside in phase 4; is involved in phases 5 to 8; is involved before any commitments that deviate from the defined offer.

Founders

Purpose: Set focus, direction and priorities. The role works well when it makes clear decisions on focus and non-focus, holds priorities consistently and protects the system from overload, changes of direction and actionism. In founder-led companies the founders are often executive management. They then have overall responsibility for phases 1 and 9 and for every phase whose function with overall responsibility is not filled separately, and there they take the place of that function rather than acting alongside it.
Responsibilities: make decisions on focus and non-focus; prioritise markets, target groups and initiatives; weigh up opportunities, risks and resources; ensure the strategic coherence of the system.
Typical decisions: What do we commit to, and what explicitly not? Which topics get attention and budget? When do we stop or change a direction?
Limits: no operational micromanagement; no replacing product management, Marketing or Sales; no ad hoc decisions without a basis for learning.
Typical failure patterns: Intuition replaces structured insight. Topics that do not hold up are stopped too late. Wishes and evidence get mixed up.
In the model: drive phase 1, in early initiatives also phase 2 and the learning loop in phase 9.

Strategy

Purpose: Assesses market, competition and timing and creates the basis for decisions on focus and investment.
Responsibilities: analyses market, segments and competition; identifies opportunities, risks and alternatives; structures assumptions and hypotheses; supports focus decisions with clarity.
Questions it provides a basis for: Which markets are attractive, and why? Where do differentiation and limits lie? Which assumptions are critical?
Limits: no product or implementation decisions; no responsibility for turnover or forecast; no operational implementation.
Typical failure patterns: Strategy remains abstract. Analyses have no consequences for decisions. Presentations replace clarity.
In the model: drives phases 1 and 9 with analyses and a basis for decisions, not with implementation. Overall responsibility for phases 1 and 9 lies with executive management.

Marketing

Purpose: Systematically creates demand for a validated offer. The role works well when it translates the offer into clear messages and repeatably creates qualified demand without compensating for sales problems.
Responsibilities: in phase 3, works out the offer and initial marketing material for validation in the market together with product management; translates the offer into visible messages; creates reach and qualified demand; is responsible for the MQL definition and the quality of the leads; optimises channels, content and messages. The share of MQLs that become SQLs is the shared handover metric with Sales Development.
Limits: no closing; no defining the offer on its own; no compensating for problems in the product or in sales.
Typical failure patterns: "More leads" without quality criteria. Marketing replaces clarity about the offer. Responsibility for turnover without any influence over it.
In the model: drives phase 5 and shapes phase 3 together with product management; works closely alongside in phase 4; is involved in phases 1, 6 and 9, and in phase 2 where needed; is informed in phases 7 and 8. Overall responsibility for phase 5 lies with the person responsible for Marketing as a whole.

Business Development

Purpose: Learns about, validates and opens up new business opportunities through structured conversations with the market, and feeds reliable feedback back into the system.
Responsibilities: conducts discovery and exploration conversations with target customers; validates assumptions about problem, target group and offer; identifies new use cases, segments and potential; provides structured feedback from the market and from conversations to product, Marketing and executive management; provides the guide for Sales Development's conversations in phase 4.
Limits: no closing; no price or contract negotiations; does not approve the offer, but contributes insights from conversations to its design; no responsibility for turnover or forecast.
Typical failure patterns: Business Development is used as "sales light". Conversations without a learning goal or hypothesis. Individual opinions replace patterns and evidence.
In the model: drives phase 4; drives phase 6 only where there is no separate Sales Development, otherwise it is involved; works alongside in phase 3 in many initiatives; is involved in phases 1, 2, 5 and 9, and informed in phase 7.

Sales Development

Purpose: Systematically qualifies demand and protects the time and effectiveness of Sales. The role works well when it consistently qualifies or disqualifies leads and only brings in Sales where active involvement makes sense in substance.
Responsibilities: qualifies MQLs and leads from Sales or other sources against defined criteria (ICP, need, timing); checks for indications of a possible budget framework; conducts structured qualification and initial conversations; hands SQLs over to Sales; documents reasons for disqualification, SQLs rejected by Sales with the reasons given, and recurring patterns.
Typical decisions: SQL or disqualification.
Limits: no closing; no price or contract negotiations; no shaping of the offer; no market or product strategy.
Where the same person qualifies and closes: the SQL criteria are recorded in writing and the classification as an SQL is documented.
Typical failure patterns: Sales Development is used as "junior sales". Meetings without genuine qualification. The illusion of a pipeline created by unverified leads.
In the model: drives phase 6; supports phase 4 with conversations based on a guide from Business Development. Overall responsibility for phase 6 lies with the person responsible for Sales as a whole.

Sales

Purpose: Takes qualified sales opportunities to a binding close. The role works well when clear leadership of decisions and negotiations leads to a close or to a clean no-decision.
Responsibilities: reviews the SQLs handed over by Sales Development and the potential handed over by Customer Success, and either takes confirmed sales opportunities forward as opportunities or rejects SQLs and returns them to Sales Development with reasons; leads decision and negotiation processes; clarifies budget, scope, risks and timing bindingly; agrees in advance with Delivery and product any commitments on scope or deadlines that deviate from the defined offer; is responsible for the forecast and the close of its own sales opportunities.
Typical decisions: take on an SQL or reject it with reasons; close or no-decision.
Limits: no finding of the market or the problem; no qualifying of leads; no shaping of the offer.
Where the same person qualifies and closes: the SQL criteria are recorded in writing and the classification as an SQL is documented.
Typical failure patterns: Selling starts without qualification. The forecast is based on hope. Delivery is involved too late.
In the model: drives phase 7; provides feedback in phase 3; is involved in phase 6 in defining the SQL criteria; is involved in phases 1, 2, 4, 5, 8 (handover) and 9. Overall responsibility for phases 6 and 7 lies with the person responsible for Sales as a whole, who in phase 7 is also accountable for turnover.

Delivery

Purpose: Realises the service that was sold.
Responsibilities: implements the agreed service; ensures that scope, quality and expectations are met; ensures a clean handover and coordination; is involved before any commitments that deviate from the defined offer.
Limits: no compensating for false sales promises; no replacing Customer Success; no selling.
Typical failure patterns: The handover from sales is poor or missing. Delivery has to compensate for false sales promises.
In the model: drives phase 2 together with product management, and phase 8; in phase 8 has specialist responsibility for the agreed service and its acceptance by the customer; is involved in phase 7 and informed in phases 3 and 4. Overall responsibility for phase 8 lies with the head of Delivery.

Customer Success

Purpose: Secures customer benefit, retention and further development. The role works well when the customer recognises and achieves the promised benefit and continues the collaboration over the long term.
Responsibilities: ensures use and added value; looks after expectations and the relationship; hands over recognised potential for expansion, additional services or renewal to Sales.
Limits: no closing of new orders; no replacing Delivery; no reactive support without structure.
Typical failure patterns: The customer does not understand the benefit. Customer Success is involved too late.
In the model: drives phase 8 and has specialist responsibility there for realising the benefit, the customer relationship and retention; begins not after but with the close; is informed in phases 3 and 4; contributes experience to phase 9.

Role bundles

Role bundles describe typical working constellations along the phases. They complement the individual roles and replace neither them nor a sound phase logic or the assessment of maturity. One person can hold several roles; what matters is responsibility in the process, not the job title. Overall responsibility for each phase remains, as described above, with exactly one function.

Product management, founders, strategy. Focus: understanding the problem, solution logic and strategic direction. Clarifies market, problem, target customers and benefit, makes the decisions on focus and non-focus, and drives the early phases 1 and 2 and the learning loop in phase 9.
Product management with Business Development or Sales in discovery conversations. A combined way of working in the early phases to test problem and solution. Conducts discovery conversations without sales pressure and without a sales target, tests assumptions about problem, context and benefit, and feeds the insights back into the product. Business Development and Sales do not shape the product definition on their own.
Marketing, product management and Business Development. Joint work on offer design, positioning and market fit. Translates the product into an understandable offer, sharpens the benefit arguments and target segments, works out initial marketing material for validation in the market and ensures that the offer can be explained externally. The offer is approved by the person responsible for it.
Business Development and Sales Development with product management and Marketing. Collaboration in demand validation. Tests the offer in real conversations, collects objections, misunderstandings and resonance, and feeds the insights back into the offer and the messages. Sales Development supports with conversations based on a guide from Business Development.
Marketing. Focus: systematic demand generation. Creates visibility and reach for a validated offer, generates Marketing Qualified Leads and optimises channels, messages and content.
Sales Development (Business Development where there is no separate Sales Development). Focus: qualifying and preparing sales opportunities. Makes personal contact, checks ICP fit, need and timing as well as indications of a possible budget framework, and hands qualified leads (SQLs) over to Sales.
Sales. Focus: closing. Leads qualified opportunities through the decision process, negotiates price, scope and conditions, and is responsible for the forecast and the close of its own sales opportunities. The person responsible for Sales as a whole is accountable for turnover.
Delivery and Customer Success. Focus: realising the promised customer value. Ensures a clean handover from Sales, implements the agreed service and secures satisfaction and retention. Customer Success hands over recognised potential for expansion, additional services or renewal to Sales. Delivery and Customer Success remain two roles, each with its own specialist responsibility; overall responsibility lies with the head of Delivery.

Where the same person qualifies and closes, the SQL criteria are recorded in writing and the classification as an SQL is documented.