Early in my career I worked in a small company with very little structure.
There was a lot of energy, very few formal processes and not many layers of leadership. Decisions were easy to make. Sometimes they were right, sometimes they were wrong, but they were fast.
If there was data supporting a decision, great. If there wasn’t, and there was still time to try something, the instinct was simple: just build it and see what happens. Discussion and alignment were not major constraints.
Things started to change when I moved to a larger and more structured organization.
Suddenly there were more stakeholders, more teams and more layers of leadership involved in product decisions. Each group had its own perspective, goals and priorities.
In that environment, alignment became much more important.
And disagreements became much more common.
When strategy is too broad
One of the most common sources of disagreement is the absence of a clear strategic direction.
Company strategy is supposed to guide product decisions. But sometimes strategy is written at such a high level that almost anything can fit into it.
I have often found myself looking for the right company-level initiative to attach a piece of work to. When that happens, it is usually a sign that the strategy is too broad.
If everything fits the strategy, then the strategy is not really helping teams make decisions.
In these situations it becomes much harder to reach agreement. Different teams can reasonably interpret the same strategic direction in completely different ways.
Missing customer signals
Another common source of missing information is the absence of strong customer signals.
Customer feedback and real requests should be among the most important inputs for product decisions, especially when combined with a clear strategy.
When those signals are missing, discussions tend to become more speculative.
Product managers and designers are often asked to gather more information: run discovery, talk with customers and try to validate assumptions.
This is where collaboration with customer success and support teams becomes extremely valuable. They often have the closest view of what customers are actually struggling with.
Talking with customers sounds simple, but in practice it can be difficult.
Customers are busy. Reaching them takes time. And sometimes they are focused on problems completely unrelated to the topic you want to discuss.
Interestingly, even the absence of interest can be a signal.
If customers consistently show no interest in discussing a problem, that might be an indicator that the problem is not as important as we initially thought.
When information is incomplete
When important information is missing, product discussions tend to change in nature.
Instead of data and signals guiding the conversation, personal perspectives start to carry more weight.
Ownership of a topic can influence how people interpret the same situation. Technical and non-technical stakeholders may evaluate risks differently. Also, leadership priorities and yearly goals can also shape how decisions are perceived.
In these situations disagreements often become louder, even if everyone involved is acting in good faith.
When information is incomplete, opinions become louder.
Moving forward despite uncertainty
Of course teams cannot wait for perfect information before making decisions.
Sometimes the only way to move forward is through discovery, customer conversations or small experiments that generate new signals.
In other situations the most responsible choice may simply be to wait and observe how the problem evolves.
Product work often happens under uncertainty. The challenge is not eliminating that uncertainty, but understanding when decisions are based on strong signals and when they are based mostly on assumptions.
Recognizing the difference can make product disagreements much easier to navigate.
Product teams often try to resolve uncertainty by pushing forward and building something quickly.
But sometimes the better option is to wait and observe how the situation evolves before committing to a solution.