The Product Feedback Loop
To load Harbourline's rate cards, you wrote a reader for their carrier spreadsheets. At the next team meeting you learn that two other Loomwork FDEs wrote almost the same thing for their customers. Three copies of one idea, each with its own bugs, each looked after by one person. The field was telling Loomwork something, and nobody passed the message on.
The rule
Solve it here, then report the pattern home with evidence.
- Solve it here. The customer cannot wait for the next product release, so you unblock them with a workaround. Keep it in configuration or an adapter, not in a private copy of the core product. A private copy, called a fork, means every future product update has to be merged into it by hand, for one customer.
- Report the pattern. One workaround is a fix. The same workaround in several places is a gap in the product.
- With evidence. Product teams hear many requests. Good feedback describes the problem rather than demanding a solution, and it shows how often the problem happens and what it costs.
Strong feedback has five parts:
- Problem: what users are trying to do, and what gets in the way.
- Who and how often: which customers, how many cases.
- Cost of today's workaround: hours spent, money lost, risk carried.
- Evidence: sample files, quotes, numbers.
- What done looks like: how everyone will know it is solved.
Then close the loop. When the product ships a fix, tell the customer and move them off the workaround.
The shortcut
Use the rule of three. The first time, solve it locally. The second time, share the code and note the pattern. The third time, it is a product request with evidence.
Once
Harbourline's rates live in 40 spreadsheets. You write an adapter that reads them, kept outside Loomwork's core code.
The trap is quiet duplication: every FDE solving the same problem alone, or one customer's fork drifting further from the product with every release.
Drills
Answer fast — trust the rule.
Which is the most useful product feedback?
Why avoid making a private copy of the core product for one customer?
What should feedback to the product team mainly describe?
The product team ships rate-card import. What is left for you to do?
Remember
- Solve it here, then report the pattern home with evidence.
- Shortcut: the rule of three. Solve it, share it, then request it with evidence.
- Trap: forks for one customer, and feedback that is only a demanded feature.