Design a "what we are NOT doing" document

Saying No Is the Deliverable

Most product leaders can articulate what they are doing. Very few can articulate what they are not doing and why. The asymmetry is why roadmaps slowly bloat — every new ask is evaluated against empty space rather than against a maintained list of deliberate cuts. Marty Cagan's "most important thing" essay argues that focus is the scarcest product resource, and Paul Graham on doing great work notes that maintaining the list of "not doing" is often harder than picking what to do because it requires explicit reasoning that can be referenced later.

How the Design a "what we are NOT doing" document Prompt Works

The prompt forces every "not doing" entry to include a steelman of the ask (so it cannot be dismissed as a straw man), one of four reject reasons, and an explicit revisit trigger. The revisit trigger converts the document from a graveyard into a living artifact — items move in and out as the metric thresholds fire.

When to Use It

• Your roadmap keeps absorbing new items between planning cycles.
• A recurring scope debate eats 30+ minutes of every exec sync.
• You are a new product leader and want to document the cuts you made on entry.
• A QBR is coming and you want to pre-empt the "why not X" questions.
• The team has lost confidence because cuts feel arbitrary.

Common Pitfalls

• No steelman of the ask. If the entry reads like a dismissal, the person who asked will re-raise it and the debate will happen again.
• Missing revisit triggers. Without a trigger, "not doing" feels permanent. The asker will route around the doc instead of engaging with it.
• No owner per entry. An unowned entry is one that decays. Someone needs to check the trigger metrics quarterly.

Sources

• The Most Important Thing — Silicon Valley Product Group
• Product Strategy Overview — Silicon Valley Product Group
• How to Do Great Work — Paul Graham
• The Product Strategy Stack — Reforge