How to Make Good Product Decisions Faster

One of the biggest differences I've seen between experienced and novice PMs is the speed of decision making.

Example:

  • Novice PM: "Let me research this a bit…" — days later — "There isn't enough data, I've been struggling between these three solutions."
  • Experienced PM: "Let's go with this one. It's the best option we can make right now."

The difference isn't luck or recklessness — it's a muscle built through experience and good decision frameworks.

Why It's So Important

Speed of decision making directly affects the speed of product development.

  • Every delay in decision-making slows down the entire team.
  • It blocks the PM from moving forward to the next high-ROI problem.
  • And in today's market, speed is survival — the faster you decide, the faster you learn and adapt.

After years of coaching PMs, I've found that great PMs don't just make good decisions — they make them faster. Below are my go-to mental models for speeding up your product decision without trading off the quality.

1. ROI, ROI, ROI

Every great PM develops an obsession with this mindset: What's the ROI?

Your brain should automatically scan for impact, effort, and leverage before committing to anything.

Ask yourself:

  • What's the impact if I do this?
  • How much effort or risk does it take?
  • Is there a quicker path to 80% of the value?
  • Which task delivers the highest impact first?
  • What if I skip the low-impact ones entirely?

Think Global, Not Local

If you want to grow as a PM, think like a leader — think globally, not locally.

Don't just polish your feature, think about how your decision moves the product or the company.

Senior PMs think in terms of weeks of impact, not weeks of effort. They focus on actions that create visible business outcomes across users or revenue — not perfecting the edge cases only 1% of users see.

Think Functional and Non-Functional

Sometimes, a small UX fix, a clearer onboarding flow, or a better help doc can lift satisfaction or retention more than a big feature that takes months. Broaden your definition of impact — it's not always about new features.

Common Symptoms

  • ❌ Spending a sprint polishing empty states => ✅ Spending the same time simplifying onboarding and boost activation.
  • ❌ Spending too long researching or perfecting low-impact problems, users will use this but rarely => ✅ Listing down and spending on higher-impact opportunities.
  • ❌ Saying yes and working on all requests from stakeholders and users.

2. One-way vs. Two-way doors

About risk management. I would borrow Amazon's concept: some decisions are reversible (2-way doors), some are not (1-way doors).

If it's reversible - bias toward action. You can always adjust later.

If it's irreversible — take your time, research, get alignment, and decide carefully.

Knowing which door you're facing helps you balance speed vs risk effectively.

Examples

  • I have 2 options, both have tradeoffs. If I go with one of them, both are functional and I can get feedback from users to iterate and change quickly. Let's choose one and see.

Jeff Bezos explains one-way door decisions and two-way door decisions

3. Deal with Ambiguity – Making Decisions Without Enough Data

In product building, you'll rarely have all the data you want. Especially when working with new ideas or limited resources.

To handle that:

  • Use your intuition and experience. You've seen patterns before — trust them as a starting point.
  • Acquire context quickly. Use your product, talk to users, read feedback.
  • Seek diverse perspectives. Ask peers or domain experts for their intuition too.
  • Align early with stakeholders. Don't wait until the end to get buy-in.

Speed here doesn't mean guessing — it means acting with the best information available right now.

Examples

  • I only have 3 days to decide, and 8/10 tools use this term. Let's use this for now.
  • Not sure which path I should go. Let's schedule a call to ask each stakeholder their opinion.

4. Time-box Your Discovery and Decision

One silent killer of decision speed is dragging things out.

You keep "thinking about it", but:

  • There's no clear deadline
  • You don't feel confident enough to decide
  • So you quietly move on to another problem… and another…

The biggest hidden cost here is context switching.

Every time you return to a problem, your brain needs time to reload all the details, constraints, and trade-offs. Multiply that across 3-5 open problems, all decisions get delayed, and from the outside, you simply look slow.

Sample Symptom

  • Monday: Work on Problem A, but don't feel ready to decide
  • Tuesday: Switch to Problem B, waiting for more input from stakeholders
  • Wednesday: Jump to Problem C
  • Next Monday: Back to Problem A… but you have to re-remember everything again

Instead, you should try time-box both discovery and the decision itself.

  • Give each problem a clear window. E.g. "By Friday, we will decide on Problem A."
  • During that window, do whatever it takes to get to a decision:
    • Schedule calls to align key stakeholders
    • Pull in as many useful inputs as you reasonably can
    • Prefer reversible decisions where possible
    • Make the must-have decisions first; park the nice-to-haves

And keep in mind the rule: Don't move on to the next problem without making some decision on the current one.

Even if it's not perfect, a time-boxed, reversible decision is almost always better than a "perfect" decision that never comes.

5. Problem Clarity

The last but most important skill in fast decision-making is problem clarity.

Most "slow decisions" aren’t actually slow because the decision is hard. They’re slow because the problem is fuzzy.

Before you pick a solution, you need to see the problem landscape clearly:

  • Map out the problem
  • Identify the root causes
  • Understand how the pieces link together
  • See which issues are symptoms vs. which are the real constraints
  • Evaluate the impact

When your problems are well-structured conceptually, every other practice becomes easier:

  • Time-boxing works because you know exactly what you’re deciding
  • Prioritization becomes obvious
  • You extract better inputs from stakeholders
  • You avoid chasing symptoms and revisiting dead ends

Einstein said "If I had an hour to solve a problem, I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes on the solution"

The same applies here.

A clear problem reduces ambiguity, sharpens your decision window, and gives you confidence to make a call, faster and with less regret.

Final Thoughts

Speed of decision-making isn't about rushing. It's about prioritizing impact, acting with confidence, and learning fast.

In product management, speed compounds — every quick decision unlocks the next opportunity for your team, your users, and your company.