Proven Rituals of Great Product Teams

Shackleton recalls a story about three bricklayers: one sees a task, another sees a process, and the third sees a cathedral. Product teams need to understand the larger purpose behind their work. He recommends working backward from the customer experience, such as by writing a press release, and creating a visual artifact that makes the future tangible.

Coda links a small set of business challenges to major bets, then lets teams shape their OKRs. Its quarterly-plus approach commits teams to the current quarter while flagging likely milestones, decisions, and risks in the next one. Teams can change OKRs when customer needs or priorities shift, while evaluating broader strategies over several quarters.

Shackleton says reviews often suffer from missing participants, slow scheduling, uneven context, and dominant voices. Coda's Catalyst process reserves recurring calendar time and identifies a driver, a Braintrust, and interested colleagues. Written pre-reads, ranked questions called Dory, and a separate sentiment check help teams surface concerns, including quiet dissent.

Coda uses Braintrust kickoffs to gather concerns and define success at the start of an effort, with more formal reviews for consequential or hard-to-reverse decisions. Teams have autonomy over smaller choices and are encouraged to make prototypes. Ad hoc environments let teams run code in an isolated, customer-accessible setup and learn from real use.

Shackleton points listeners to the Coda Gallery and his writing at lane.shackleton.com for templates and product team rituals. He also mentions Shashir's book project, Rituals of Great Teams, which grew from dinners with leaders sharing how they work.