# Example — Head of Product Operating Review

## Input

> Help me prepare a head-of-product operating review for this month. Activation improved slightly, but early retention is still flat. Sales is pushing for more enterprise features, growth wants stronger referral loops, and engineering says we are carrying too much parallel work. Support volume from onboarding confusion is still high. I need a sharp operating view for leadership, not a generic status summary.

## Output

# Head of Product Operating Review

## 1. Period summary

- **Review period:** this month
- **Core product objective:** improve growth quality by raising activation and early retention without losing enterprise momentum
- **Business context:** pressure is increasing from three sides at once — sales wants enterprise readiness, growth wants top-of-funnel acceleration, and the current product experience still leaks too much value in onboarding

## 2. Bottom line

- **What is going well:** activation improved slightly, which suggests first-use changes are moving in the right direction
- **What is off track:** early retention has not followed, onboarding confusion is still creating support drag, and delivery focus is too fragmented
- **Overall call for this period:** we should resist broadening the roadmap right now and instead tighten focus around activation-to-retention conversion plus a narrow enterprise credibility lane

## 3. KPI and signal view

### Positive signals

- Activation improved, which means the front door is becoming less broken
- Enterprise demand pressure suggests some commercial pull is real, not hypothetical

### Warning signals

- Early retention is flat, so first-use improvement is not yet compounding into durable product value
- Support volume from onboarding confusion remains high, which means user friction is still materially unresolved
- Engineering reports too much parallel work, which increases the chance that nothing important lands cleanly

### What the signal pattern likely means

- We are improving entry into the product faster than we are improving the reasons to stay, and we are at risk of spreading the team too thin before the current funnel is healthy

## 4. Product / growth / delivery diagnosis

### Product

- The main product issue is no longer pure discoverability; it is whether users reach enough value fast enough to stay.

### Growth

- Pushing referral loops now is likely to amplify a partially leaky experience rather than create durable efficient growth.

### Delivery / execution

- Parallel work is becoming a structural tax. Too many lanes are competing for attention relative to current team capacity.

### Cross-functional friction

- Sales, growth, support, and engineering are each surfacing real needs, but they are pulling on different parts of the system at the same time. Without a clearer period objective, that tension will keep expanding roadmap sprawl.

## 5. Leadership decisions needed

1. Confirm whether the next period objective is still activation + early retention quality, not broader feature expansion.
2. Decide how much enterprise work is truly critical for near-term deals versus simply desirable.
3. Back a sharper WIP limit so engineering can land fewer priorities more cleanly.

## 6. Recommended next-period focus

### Above the line

- Reduce onboarding confusion that still drives support volume.
- Improve the activation-to-retention handoff, not just top-of-funnel entry.
- Keep one narrowly scoped enterprise credibility lane for the most active commercial blockers.

### Below the line

- Broad referral loop expansion.
- Nice-to-have enterprise breadth beyond immediate deal blockers.
- Additional parallel experimentation that weakens landing quality on the core path.

## 7. Main risks and watchpoints

- **Risk:** activation continues to rise while retention stays flat
  - **Why it matters:** this would mean we are getting better at starting sessions without improving durable product value
  - **What to watch:** activation-to-week-1 retention conversion, repeat usage depth, user trust signals

- **Risk:** enterprise requests keep expanding the roadmap informally
  - **Why it matters:** this would break focus before the core growth-quality problem is fixed
  - **What to watch:** count of new enterprise asks entering active scope, engineering lane fragmentation, slip rate on core priorities

## 8. Ask to leadership

- **Decision / support needed:** align on a tighter next-period focus and explicitly protect it from opportunistic scope growth
- **Resource implication:** keep enterprise work constrained to the few blockers with real deal consequence; do not widen commitment without corresponding capacity change
- **Review checkpoint:** re-evaluate at the midpoint of next period using activation-to-retention conversion and support-volume trend
