🧠Real PM Case Study, Week 6
This one trips up PMs who are good at discovery, because the problem isn’t knowing what to build.
It’s knowing when to say no to what users are asking for.
You’re a PM at a B2B project management tool.
You’ve been running a quarterly feedback survey for 6 months. You finally have enough data to act on it.
The top requested feature, by a wide margin, is a native time-tracking module.
47% of respondents mentioned it. Your power users want it. Your CSM team wants it. Even your CEO is asking about it.
But when you dig into the data, something doesn’t add up.
Your highest-retention cohort, teams that have been with you 18+ months and expanded seats, almost never mentioned time tracking.
They’re asking for better task dependencies and cross-project visibility.
And your 90-day churn rate is highest among teams that came in specifically for project management, not time tracking.
You have one quarter of focused eng capacity.
HERE’S WHAT’S ON THE TABLE
A) Build What They’re Asking For
Scope a solid time-tracking module. Use it to reduce churn, win back churned accounts, and create a new acquisition angle.
Bet: volume of requests is the strongest signal you have. 47% is not noise. If you don’t build it, they’ll find a tool that does.
B) Build What Your Best Customers Actually Need
Deprioritize time tracking. Focus the quarter on task dependencies and cross-project visibility, the features your healthiest, highest-LTV cohort is asking for.
Bet: retention signal from your best customers outweighs acquisition signal from at-risk ones. Build for who you want more of.
C) Validate Before You Commit
Pause both. Run 10 discovery calls split between churned users and your best retained cohort. Build only once you know whether “time tracking” means the same thing to both groups.
Bet: the survey data is directional, not decisive. You don’t know enough yet to spend a full quarter on either path.
What would you do?
Drop your pick in the comments and tell us why. Bonus points if you’ve lived a version of this.
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🧠Real PM Case Study, Week 6
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