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Every product team has one. A backlog full of ideas that were urgent three months ago. Features someone important asked for. Problems a customer screamed about in a support ticket.
Nobody remembers why half of them are there.
This is decision decay. And it’s costing your team more than you think.
What decision decay actually is
A product decision has a shelf life. The moment someone says “we should build X,” a clock starts ticking. Context fades. The person who requested it moves on. The market shifts. The data that justified it gets stale.
But the ticket stays open. Six months later, someone picks it up and starts building something that no longer matters.
Why it happens
This isn’t your team’s fault. Every tool in the product stack is built for forward motion. Jira moves tickets right. Linear moves them through cycles. Notion captures meeting notes that nobody reads again.
These tools are designed to push work forward. None of them ask the hard question: is this still worth doing?
What it costs you
Three symptoms.
Zombie tickets. Open 90+ days. Nobody wants to close them or build them.
Context loss. The original requester left. The priority changed. But the ticket still says “high priority.”
Relitigated decisions. The same debate every quarter because nobody remembers what was decided.
What to do about it
Kill the zombies. Archive anything that hasn’t been touched in 90 days. If it matters, someone will bring it back. If nobody notices it’s gone, you have your answer.
This is what The Decay Report is about
Every week, I’ll share frameworks, patterns, and hard truths about how product decisions fall apart. No fluff. No thought leadership theater. Just practical stuff for product teams.
Tom Pinder