Simplify to Amplify: Streamline Your Product Process

Most product teams don’t set out to create a tangled process. It just happens over time — a new template for each initiative, a new checklist for each crisis, a new document “just to make sure.” Before long, product managers are juggling duplicative tools, outdated documents, and rituals that no one remembers why they exist.

The Quartz Planning Canvas was designed to help teams take a deep breath, step back, and bring clarity to their product process — from DEFINE to DELIVER.

Map What You’re Really Doing

Start by capturing your current process across the Quartz phases:

• DEFINE – How do you identify problems worth solving?

• COMMIT – How do you make investment decisions?

• DESCRIBE – How do you translate strategy into deliverables?

• CREATE – How do you build and validate solutions?

• PREPARE – How do you ready teams and customers for launch?

• DELIVER – How do you measure success and learn from results?

Write down what actually happens, not what’s supposed to happen. Which meetings occur? Which tools are used? Which deliverables are created? And who’s involved at each stage? This step is diagnostic — it’s not about judgment. It’s about surfacing the reality of how work gets done.

Identify Duplication and Dead Weight

Once the map is complete, step back and look for overlap:

• Are multiple documents capturing the same information?

• Are there deliverables no one reads or updates anymore?

• Are there review steps that exist purely because “we’ve always done it that way”?

Every unnecessary artifact and redundant step adds friction. The goal isn’t to standardize for the sake of uniformity — it’s to simplify for agility.

If two documents serve the same purpose, merge them. If a meeting exists only to summarize another document, drop it. If something isn’t helping the team move faster or make better decisions, it’s probably time to retire it.

When Good Intentions Go Bad

People who design internal processes almost always have the best intentions. They want alignment. They want accountability. They want visibility. But good intentions can quietly morph into bureaucratic sprawl.

It starts innocently enough: a late project, a missed expectation, a frustrated stakeholder. Someone says, “We need more structure,” and before long, everyone’s producing more documentation instead of better outcomes.

You’ve surely seen this before. First comes the Marketing Requirements Document (MRD) — a comprehensive tome defining the market, the features, the schedule, and every conceivable risk. It’s a noble attempt at control. Then comes the Product Requirements Document (PRD) to capture every feature in detail. Still not enough? Add a Functional Specification Document (FSD) to explain how each feature works.

And somewhere along the way, the team realizes they’re drowning in paper. The documents have become the product.

This happens because each process layer is built to fix the last failure — not to improve the next success. The result is a labyrinth of sign-offs, meetings, and templates that assume perfect information, limitless time, and universal cooperation.

Reality never plays along. Stakeholders change their minds, priorities shift, developers leave, and new opportunities appear mid-project. The rigid process can’t flex, so teams pile on more process to compensate — a vicious cycle of documentation without delivery.

Rebuild Around Living Documents

Rather than creating static templates that age the moment they’re approved, focus on living documents — a small, essential set that evolves with the product:

• A Product Brief that stays current as you learn more about the problem.

• A Roadmap that reflects strategy, not scheduling.

• A Launch Plan that grows from concept to go-live.

• A Post-Launch Summary that captures insights for the next cycle.

Each document should be lightweight, linked, and frequently updated — not filed away. Living documents reduce noise while increasing transparency.

Adapt, Don’t Adopt

Every organization is unique. The Quartz canvas provides a framework, not a formula. Its value lies in the conversations it sparks — about how your team defines success, how decisions get made, and how information flows.

Instead of forcing your organization into someone else’s process, use the canvas to adapt the essentials to your context. Borrow what works, bend what doesn’t, and make the process yours.

The end goal isn’t conformity — it’s clarity. When everyone knows how work moves from Define to Deliver, the team moves faster, decisions stick, and results improve.

Final Thought

Complexity creeps in silently. The Quartz Planning Canvas is your way to push back — to bring focus, agility, and purpose back to your product process. Keep what matters, remove what doesn’t, and build a rhythm that reflects how your team truly works.

Because the best product processes aren’t the most complete.

They’re the ones your team actually uses.