Kill List

What to stop doing, and how to run the kill so the org actually lets go.

• Are OKRs still worth it for AI products?OKRs were built for weekly builds and monthly signal. For AI products with daily signal and four-hour prototypes, replace them with a Rolling Outcome Ledger.
• How do CPOs win the AI transition without stalling?The soft pivot is a fantasy. Win with a sunset date, rewritten comp, a pre-sold gross-margin trough, and the seven-decision sequence run in order.
• How do you decide whether to cannibalize your own product?Four diagnostic questions route the call to sunset, refresh, or split. Architecture, ICP, gross-margin trough, and buyer decide, not comfort level.
• How do you deprecate a feature?Deprecate on signal, not politics. Write a kill condition at launch, pick one of three tiers, and send individual notices to users from the last 90 days.
• How do you kill a feature without breaking trust?Kill a feature by running discovery on non-adopters first, then reorganizing before you rip out code. One kill lifted platform activation 15%.
• How do you run empowered teams when the CEO doesn't buy in?You don't need permission to run empowered teams. You need evidence. Four tactics, repeated for six months, until the results make the case for you.
• How do you sunset a pricing tier?Sunset a pricing tier over 18-24 months with a three-wave customer migration, a comp plan rewrite, and a post-sunset reorg. Five patterns kill most sunsets.
• Is spec-driven development (IDSD or SDD) worth it?SDD and IDSD are the same methodology layer with different stickers. Skip both. The prototype is the spec, the eval is the acceptance test.
• Should you kill AI office hours?AI office hours are 2026's agile transformation: high attendance, zero shipped output. Kill them and run paired shipping, eval reviews, and kill list reviews.
• Should you kill the PRD entirely?The PRD was a 2015 fix for a 2015 problem. Replace it with three artifacts: a working prototype, a one-page eval rubric, and a one-page README.
• Should you kill the roadmap?Kill the quarterly roadmap and run a one-page live bet portfolio instead: 5-7 active bets, each with a hypothesis, signal, kill condition, and decision date.
• Should you kill the status meeting?The status meeting exists because nobody trusts the dashboard. Replace it with one live product page and reclaim about six hours a week per PM.
• Should you still run an APM program?LinkedIn's CPO killed the APM program. Replace the two-year rotation with a 12-week Product Builder apprenticeship: four prototypes, one production ship.
• Were empowered product teams just a ZIRP feature?Empowered teams were a luxury of cheap capital, not a law. Expensive capital killed patience, AI killed the constraint. Autonomy survives, ceremony does not.
• What is a Kill List and how do you run one?A Kill List is the standing counterpart to a roadmap: a maintained list of things to stop. Run it on a cadence with one entry test: would we start this today?
• What is the anti-backlog?The anti-backlog replaces a bloated backlog with a live queue capped at two weeks, a hypothesis library, and a kill list. Migrate in four weeks.
• What should you do instead of a feature request queue?Replace the feature request queue with signal synthesis, prototype-first investigation, and a seven-item outcome bet ledger. Your 847-item backlog is debt.
• What is wrong with the 'I built it in a weekend' flex?Speed to demo is a vanity metric. The weekend-build flex measures the cheapest, most brittle thing you make. Ask if it was still running the weekend after.
• Why can killing a product beat launching one?A good kill often creates more value than a mediocre launch, but the org is blind to it. Killing well is the rarest and most valuable product skill.
• Why is a reorg a product decision?Conway's Law means your org ships its communication structure, so a reorg sets your roadmap ceiling before a ticket exists. The org chart is a product spec.