Best Product Decision Practices

Evolve your change control board.

It’s essential to have a change control board (CCB)—a group of subject matter experts who make decisions about the direction of your product and what will and, more importantly, will not be addressed in any given iteration. But relying on the same people and processes without evolving will make you more vulnerable to changes in leadership (e.g., M&As), drastic shifts in your supply chain, and unexpected competition.

By incrementally evolving your CCB, you broaden who can participate and diversify the expertise present. For example, consider how you might take your CCB virtual so that you have more voices in the room or use design thinking practices to get a new perspective on processes.

Document your entire product lifecycle in one (digital) place.

Finally, document every decision—and why it was made—in one place that is accessible to each relevant stakeholder regardless of where they work. Doing this will ensure not only that you have a plan to follow moving forward but that stakeholders are accountable for implementing and managing changes on time.

“Build your processes and the use of your systems to include everyone needed. When people onboard, identify what they are involved in, get them in the processes, and train them. When people leave, identify who replaces them in process participation and make the changes.”

– Cindy Lalowski, Senior Quality Systems Manager at AEye