Good Product Decision Practices

Examine your information sharing practices.

Take a step back and think about the ways in which you, your team, and your company share information both inside and outside of your organization. Mapping out your product development information flows—from requirements gathering to auditing—will enable you to examine your practices. Ask yourself: What’s information? What’s actionable information? What’s noise?

Know who needs to be in the loop when.

Another part of the equation in effective information sharing is considering who needs to know what, when. Oversharing can be as ineffective as undersharing, and it’s really information use that determines success. If your team is distributed, you will need to over-communicate, but that doesn’t mean Zoom meetings and Slack messages all day every day.

Think about how different channels are best suited to different kinds of information sharing and make sure you use them to close loops and address specific gaps with intent.

“I have this blue award ribbon hanging on my bulletin board at home. It was one of the first printed with the catchphrase ‘I just survived another meeting that should have been an email.’ I feel like I’ve won that blue ribbon ten thousand times.”
– Ben Locwin, SVP of Quality at Lumicell