Product teams don’t lack ideas, they lack clarity. Between “a customer asked,” “competitors have it,” and “we’ve always wanted this,” simple calls become stretched debates. The real cost (apart from sprints) is focus.

Below is a mini playbook you can run. If it passes these checks, you’ve earned your “yes.” If not, park it or kill it.

Ask: Who struggles without it?

• Proof options: 5+ interviews mentioning the same pain, ≥10% support tickets on it, top-3 request in your ICP segment.
• Green: It solves a recurring pain for a valuable segment.
  
• Red: It’s “nice to have” or single-customer noise.

Pick the smallest test that touches reality: clickable prototype, waitlist/smoke page, concierge pilot.

• Write a success metric now (e.g., ≥25% of invited users opt in, or prototype task success ≥70%).

If you can’t name a metric in 30 seconds, you’re not ready.

Tie it to one OKR this quarter (activation, time-to-value, retention, expansion).

• Green: you can state how much by when (e.g., “reduce onboarding drop-off by 15% in Q3”).
• Red: “It’ll help… eventually.”

Time, team, budget: do you have all three together? Who owns it after launch?

• Quick rule: Day-2 (support/iteration) should be ≤20% of build effort for the first month, with a named owner.
• If there’s no Day-2 owner, it’s a future leak.

Will it open doors, close faster, retain better, or save real cost?

• Fast checks: # of deals blocked by this, renewal risk tied to it, projected cost saved per month.
• If “competitors have it,” confirm it’s table stakes for your buyers, not just checkbox envy.

Sanity check: If the CEO hated it, would you still ship? If the answer is “no” without data, you don’t have a decision: you have a preference.

• Build it when need is real, proof is in, impact is this quarter, capacity is covered, and Day-2 has an owner.
• Park it when the idea is good but timing, proof, or capacity is weak right now.
• Don’t Build when it’s applause over impact.

We also turned this into a clean 1-page poster you can run in planning, grooming, or QBR prep: so your team spends more time shipping what matters.

Download this poster and make “build vs. backlog vs. don’t build” a 60-second decision