I discussed Growth Engineering with friends this week and felt inspired to write about it, because I believe it is an essential function that many organisations needs today. With technology — especially AI — evolving at a rapid pace, every organisation needs a dedicated department focused on experimenting with new ideas, testing potential innovations, and driving measurable growth.
A Growth Engineering team is responsible for identifying opportunities, building prototypes, validating ideas through proof of concepts (PoC), and proving their potential impact on revenue, efficiency, or customer experience.
1.Defining Objectives
Start by clearly defining what you want Growth Engineering to achieve for your business. For example:
- Enhance customer satisfaction
- Introduce new tools to reduce operational costs
- Improve data accuracy through error detection and correction
- Speed up product delivery cycles
2. Building Initial Prototype
Once the objectives are established, identify the tools or technologies that can help you reach those goals. Ask questions like:
- How can new tools help achieve the objectives?
- What existing technologies are available?
- Are there subscription-based products that can support this?
- Can I use trial versions before committing to a purchase?
- What tech stack is required to build or integrate the solution?
3. Review and Stakeholder Feedback
After building the initial prototype, invite stakeholders to review the PoC. Prepare targeted questions to understand:
- How the tool helps achieve the objectives defined in step one
- Estimated development costs and expected ROI
- How much operational cost can be saved or revenue increased
- How reliability or productivity is improved
It’s also valuable to involve the marketing team to assess:
- How users will perceive and value the product
- What differentiates this initiative from existing solutions
- Whether the product has commercial potential and how to position it
Growth Engineering influences product roadmaps, boosts productivity, and increases team motivation by providing a structured path from idea to impact.
Example Scenario
Objective: Reduce development costs by 20%.
To explore this, we can evaluate industry tools such as OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock.
Coming from a tech background, my goal is to save 20% of development time for applications. For example, if the system integrates with more than 20 external APIs, onboarding and understanding each API can be time-consuming. Imagine ingesting all relevant API documentation into an AI model such as OpenAI. A custom chatbot built on this knowledge could answer developers’ questions instantly and accelerate integration work.
After presenting this PoC, the next step is to evaluate whether it is worth scaling by analysing measurable improvements, cost savings, and growth impact.
Summary
Growth Engineering bridges innovation and implementation. It transforms ideas into tangible outcomes, drives continuous improvement, and prepares organisations to adapt in an environment where technology evolves faster than ever.