Customer Feedback Has No Single Home for Product Managers
Product Managers across various companies are struggling with an overwhelming influx of customer feedback, internal requests, and data, leading to disorganization and difficulty prioritizing effectively. This manifests as scattered information, lack of a single source of truth, and challenges in translating insights into actionable product improvements and strategic direction. Ultimately, this impacts their ability to build and scale successful products.
SOURCES (60)
“Because our designers got laid off, everyone fighting over one person, and in the world of AI I am just trying to keep up and not get laid off. Are you proposing i should get in line for a designer, and damn all my deliveries?…”
“Asking stakeholders for feedback or input is not that specialized of a skill that only a designer can handle. I spend way more time with users/customers than any designer at my company, talking through pain points and needs. I know my users. Building a good product involves a lot more than design. You can absolutely build a good product with mediocre design. And you can also build a terrible product with excellent design. Also, you don't think product owners have gone through recruitment, ed”
“It can vary. Personally I’ve always defined functional requirements because it’s been my role to know what the jobs the product needs to do and I’ve rarely had the privilege of working with a design team. Design more commonly owns usability rather than functional reqs in my experience”
“New tools means we all have to adjust. Old ways of working fall away and new ones come up. As a PM, I now have access to something that can help me get a point across in less time. Why wouldn’t I use it? I should be a good colleague and iterate with my design partner, but that doesn’t mean the tool is off limits for me. Are you doing anything to adapt? Examples: - Creating a design system that can be used in a prototyping tool to maintain consistency and standards? No one can go too far off base”
“That last line is brutal, but useful. Defining the result that would make you drop the idea before looking at the data seems like the missing guardrail. Do you write that cutoff down for every test now, or only for the bigger decisions?”
“That's a really useful distinction. The second part sounds less like decision-making and more like stakeholder alignment. Have you found that writing down the trade-off and what would change the choice is enough, or do people still expect the full deck?”
“I think you're mixing up your how/why/what metaphors. Why = Strategy - why are we building this thing, why does it exist? That would be more for the PM not a PO. What = Delivery - what is actually being built, how is it getting built. How = How should the thing work, how do customers exactly achieve their goal and complete the user journey we have in mind for them, these are the principles underpinning the product so we're intentional about what we're building.”
“three customer conversations is too little evidence to use competitor features as your roadmap. a competitor building something validates that they chose to build it, not that customers value it or that it wins deals set a weekly floor for conversations before allocating build work. ask prospects what they do now, what breaks, what it costs, and what they already tried. then rank work by repeated pain + willingness to change, not feature count you don't need a combined tool yet. use one tabl”
“Would love to hear more! I’m at the point where it’s the ability to think clearly and strategically that is now where I am most unable to get leverage from Claude. The actual tasks, uncovering what I ought to think about (via grill-me), etc is now straight forward. My clarity of thought is the bottleneck now. Any tips here? Have you been able to find a consistent way to use Claude as a strategic thought partner?”
“I've been experimenting with using AI to analyze product usage data. The problem I'm trying to solve isn't collecting analytics. It's figuring out what the data actually means. For example, given a CSV containing user events, you could investigate: Which actions are associated with retention? What do users who churn do differently? Which features are barely used? Which user segments behave differently? Where do users drop off? Which behaviors happen before conversion? I built an”
“Yeah the UXR pile on is the kind of process that kills the relationship building your after. One thing that helped others navigate this is fame the visit as "product learning" not "research" no deliverable, no study plan, just notes for yourself. Harder for UXR to attach. The cultural shift part is slower but small wins (sharing raw observations in Slack not decks) tend to move it faster than policy arguments”
“Timebox it. Fixed date, flexible scope. Split the roadmap item into ship beta and post beta hardening so feedback has somewhere to land without blowing your original estimate. For visualizing this, Miro's roadmap templates with Claude integration let you layer feedback triage onto the board. This is easier to show stakeholders why scope shifted. Treat it like release planning, not roadmapping. Day-based roadmaps will backfire on unpredictable betas.”
“A product becomes what the users/market want it to become. A PM's "definition", "personas", "user scenarios" are just there as a guide. It's too bad because if they thought about the entire lifecycle of a job seeker - searching for a job leads to learning/growing on the job and a need for other services - there could have been big bet on certified courses or even a B2B services marketplace. Unfortunately they half assed a lot of things and having known multi”
The way out is to get more conversations of outcomes (in the form of problems and opportunities) and less on output. That is however easier said than done, for organizations and stakeholders…
On an ERP-like product where every workflow is business critical, what actually worked for me wasn't winning the argument item by item, it was turning the improvements into one named piece of…
“Looool.. this sounds like a niche variation of Product Ops. Get veeeeery familiar with change management principles and make sure your people/personal/relationship skills are 💯”
“I've found it hard to create a throughout report in talent insight. And in the meanwhile, my boss does not have a clear roadmap in our products. I want to do sth. to help. Can anybody share some model of your report ? submitted by /u/Different-Repeat-110 [link] [comments]”
“This. You start with an okr they care about, like make product improvements to reduce churn and just pile all the improvements under that.”
“You connect the value for those customers to the only thing that matters….Revenue. Everything leads to revenue. Build a case and tell the story about how you can retain more revenue with xyz. Split your year, or quarter by growth and retention based on the data you have. If the data you have says you are not growing but you don’t have a problem with retention than….your opinion on wanting to fix existing problems doesn’t matter…it’s not your biggest problem.”
“Use the data from the Product analytics tool. In the first place, do you use one? When planning a new feature not only allow time for the MVP but also, give your team time to analize how is received, used and then improve it. So, after a bigger feature prioritize some small stuff and prepare for a series of improvements. Usually products have one or few critical features that contribute to the 80% of the revenue. Know that and allow time to improve, refactor those too. Use the churn reports, the”
“The longer I’ve been in the game, the more I’m tired of delivering new feature after new feature. There simply doesn’t feel time in the roadmap to actually improve the complaints I see customers making each month. It’s burning me out knowing that there are customers using the product and getting frustrated by our initial release and still haven’t improved it since it’s mvp. How do I make space in the calendar year and convince the business to go back prioritise existing features. It’s always the”
“Of course it sounds like a bad idea. Moving to a "product operating model" isn't a binary thing -- it's both a process and a spectrum. The vast majority of companies that we think of as exemplifying the POM aren't 100% POM-run. And you don't change from project-driven to product-driven overnight. A lot of the clients that I work with who think that way haven't really taken the time to understand the cultural shifts that come with POM. The empowerment necessary, the”
“Well a solid platform is using "Specification by example" and some sort of test routine that tests the business logic every time you push code down the runway. Account Managers, Stakeholders, and youre own spot checking should be part of your communication routine.”
“Two things that helped me on deep-workflow B2B products. First, put the beta on the roadmap as two items, not one: "ship beta" and "harden after beta". Both get days, both are committed. If your policy is that nothing moves once it's in, you need the second slot to exist before you learn anything, otherwise the feedback has nowhere to land and you blow the first estimate. Second, the size of the feedback wave is mostly a function of how many customers you let in and how s”
“I would try to think of it a little different, and first make a rough estimate of how much the value of the beta feature outcome is worth business-wise. Make this estimate comparative to the effort to deliver it. Then triage feedback based on how much the feedback will improve the business outcome vs. what it would cost. It can be hard to make that rough business-wise estimate in acceptable delivery effort, but you likely have other potential ideas on the longer-term roadmap, so you can compare”
“Parent: 552 Depends on: 553 Goal Build the Product Manager foundation: normalized product feedback plus canonical feature/problem requests that retain evidence from support, account management, discovery and engineering sources. Do not start with a roadmap UI before the underlying evidence model exists. Product feedback model Create durable feedback records with at minimum: feedback ID tenant/client/account scope when applicable source type source object/provider ID source reference/URL when saf”
“Our product managers focus on strategic product direction and prioritisation of the big picture ‘what and why’, product owners focus on delivery and prioritisation of the ‘how’ elements once a proposal has been put above the line”
“it's not possible to give an answer without knowing more, like what the nature of the product, what the plans are, and so on. It could be there's a missing lower-cost plan, or it could be that the product isn't useful for them so it would be too expensive at any price.”
“Yes. Roadmapping. SAFe Epic concepts. Feature roadmaps align with quarter goals. Strategic vs tactical.”
“Ok. Let's talk about that. I'd love to learn a different angle here. When I say when, I'm thinking road mapping. PMs typically slate product roadmaps and got to markets as opposed to product owners who let the roadmap dictate when, and then rationally rightsize the asks to fit into that timeline.”
“How does one know what key details about a product or missing or that assumptions are wrong? Knowledge about the space?”
“In my years in product, the one thing that I have learned is certain is that there are way too many variables in play in any organization to think that you have the answer to any of their many problems without considering those variables. What you do have, are theories that connect those variables and result in some combination of things that you believe are likely to help out. If you're absolutely religious about one approach or one org structure or one way of thinking, that rigidity is goi”
“Hello, We're thinking about how we could estimate beta releases in our company. We're a B2B product and sometimes we deliver beta version that can require different capacity according to feedback given. Our roadmap is estimated using number of days required to produce an output. However, in this case the number of days can double if the feedback requires a lot of work and company policy is that once in roadmap, it can't move from it. What are the tools you would use in this situation”
“Yes just slap on the title and let them project manage, gather requirements, test, setup jira, design surveys, come up with mockups and prototypes, go to standup, do market research, … ,”
“That does sound completely reverse. Maybe double check with the company. I'd argue the lines between these roles has started to get blurred as well with the advent of AI accelerating the ability to create tickets and execute so just be cognizant of the role you're getting into. But the discipline can still important today for larger companies”
“I think too many people are getting hung up on scrum as the differentiator. I look at it as a Product Owner is typically more tactical, technical, and inward focused. Product Owners typically don't play with go to market strategies, market analysis, competitive blah. They are typically working on internal products that usually have some kind of super high level one page business plan handed to them and they need to 'design' it and deliver it. They are more of the how and why. Product”
“This is a common question in the product community. I don't think it really matters since most companies do product in their own flavor anyway, so the roles can mean whatever that company wants them to mean. There are no real standards. But I think it's settled, if I was a young PM (which I am 4 years of PM experience, about 10 years professional experience) I would just read https://www.svpg.com/product-manager-vs-product-owner-revisited/ and https://www.svpg.com/product-manager-vs-prod”
“This is almost a philosophical question. For me, the Product Owner is a Product Manager that works within Scrum. I like to think that this is the sole distinction. I’ve seen too many POs who mostly see themselves as requirements engineers managing backlogs and bugs, but neglecting their responsibility in terms of go-to-market, sales enablement or enabling teams to do upsells and such. For me, the product role requires full end-to-end ownership and that starts with a first idea and ends with enab”
“I've never seen a situation where capacity isn't "an issue." More capacity generally means we can deliver value more quickly. Without, we deliver value at the pace our capacity allows. Without additional capacity, we simply make trade-offs. What can we deliver? What is most important? What can wait? But owning engineering means we fully own product delivery. We can tell our story. We can present our options to leadership. We can share the trade-offs. And then we set priorities”
“What you’re experiencing is the value of a prototype. If the changes are largely UI/UX then it’s normal and good. If the changes are actually product decisions then ya maybe not enough was considered upfront. That said, prototyping is so cheap and easy now, process is changing and prototyping can happen earlier as part of the thinking process rather than as only a design deliverable.”
“What challenges are you facing with Productboard? Why that solution over alternatives?”
“The why evaporates because you stored the decision without the moment that made it obvious. A separate log is a second job, so it dies the week things get busy. I write the reasoning on the thing the decision belongs to, while the tradeoff is still in my head. The options I didn't pick stay there too. Otherwise future-me only remembers the winner. If it has to live in a database first, I won't open it.”
“I've been thinking about a problem that can appear after a software product has been built quickly, maintained mostly by one person, or created with a lot of help from AI tools. The product may work, but the founder or team no longer feels confident changing it. Documentation is incomplete, important decisions live in one person's head, tests do not make it clear what must not break, or bringing in another developer feels risky. I'm exploring this problem and would like to learn from”
the "understand but dont need badly enough" framing really nails it tbh
“" why there are now so many layers around product leadership ." Has any company figured out how to grow without becoming a totem pole? At each company I've worked at every level of management is desperately trying to disappear the most capable people on the levels below, lest the people below replace the people above. Let's be real: with rolling and silent layoffs, It's truly a kill or be killed game we're playing. I remember Sergey and Larry wrote some nice words befor”
“I am very much an outcomes driven PM but i’ve observed this is a lot more muddy in saas where direct revenue correlation is rarer. How do you handle situations where a screen or user flow does achieve the user’s jtbd outcome but product leadership still pushes back saying attention to detail and product craft needs to be stronger despite the quantitative metric?”
“This really hits with me, as I was given a "stretch assignment" to take on an additional product and fix all the vibecoded slop a peer had allowed and pushed for 6 months. it was getting to the point that the entire app was "going rogue" and not meeting any initial requirements, just a mountain of random features that someone thought sounded good.”
“It’s just product manager and product owner rebranded.. a dumb structure made dumber”
“There is a difference between "improving" a product and managing a product. Product Management has the domain and business analytic skills to understand both the overall business, how to prioritize features and what the market can bear in terms of product "improvement." PMs often can see the larger forest, while seeing the acorns that have fallen off each tree. PM resources are closer to the stakeholders typically, and are trained to avoid trawling for and analyzing requireme”
“"Designers are too slow and we can't wait for designs for every case." So what do you do when you come to those areas? Wing it? The process of designing for edge cases informs the main design, so if you're missing those you're essentially building from an unfinished design which may or may not be very different to what would have been the finished design. And if you’re building faster than designing then I'm pretty sure you're not getting decent feedback on designs”
“Been giving this a lot of thought too. Interesting that you raised the idea of broadening who can write requirements. What’s probably changing is that the product manager role moves further toward decision quality and away from documentation. Knowing which problems to solve, why now, what a good outcome actually looks like, and whether the product that gets built actually matches the original intent. That kind of judgement, unlike execution, doesn’t necessarily get faster with AI. If anything, i”