Killing a product? Take care of your team.

A lot of thought goes into the decision to shut down a product. This article argues that an equal amount of time should be spent on taking care of the affected team. Saying goodbye to your product always hurts — here’s how to make it suck less for everyone involved.

I’ve seen three products being killed in my career. While I couldn’t do anything about the first two, I learned a lot about how it feels to be on the receiving end of such a decision. It sucked. So when I finally was in charge of a shutdown myself, I tried to do a better job. I had to kill our product, but I didn’t want to hurt my team.

The toll it takes

If you are working in product management, you probably know that there are various reasons why a product needs to be shut down. You might lack product-market fit, there could be regulatory issues or simply the need for the company to put focus elsewhere due to limited resources. I don’t want to discuss these reasons in particular today. I’d rather talk to you about the effects that such a shutdown has on the team.

If the product is failing, hopefully there’s already enough transparency for the team to know what’s going on. But there can be external or strategic reasons for a shutdown that the team has no control over. In those cases, stopping a product might come as a shock. I’ve seen one person slipping into a mental crisis, others decided to resign from their job. You might ask yourself: What happened?

My lessons learned

My first experience with a product shutdown was a big surprise. We were in the middle of a busy beta phase with a considerable amount of users — and bugs. One day, we were told to stop whatever we were doing and focus on the shutdown instead. There were good reasons for it, but it felt surreal to switch gears that suddenly.

When a similar thing happened to me a few years later, it felt even worse, because I had poured all my heart into this project. I tried to stay professional about it, but I still remember this crushing feeling of disappointment, while at the same time the developers and designers were looking at me for answers.

Years passed, and suddenly I was on the other side of the table. The product that I was responsible for didn’t perform as planned. After lots of thinking and many discussions, a shutdown seemed to be the most viable option. It was clear that our team would be split up and I would lose some fantastic colleagues as well as my very comfortable remote job (back then this was still a thing). But it was still the right decision to take.

Now I had to tell my team that we had to kill our product. Due to my previous experiences, I really didn’t want to mess this up. I didn’t want my team to feel as bad as I had felt before. So I tried to make it okay for them. And while it was still hard for everyone, we managed to stay motivated and got through the whole shutdown phase quite smoothly.

So if you ever find yourself in a similar position as a product leader — here are six things you can do to soften the blow.

Six tips to make a product sunset suck less

Be aware of people’s feelings

This should be the most obvious, but it seems that it’s often forgotten. If you kill a product, keep in mind that people spent big chunks of their day (that means of their life) creating this product. They are attached to it, even if it is “just” a prototype. If you tell them out of the blue that the product is “no longer needed”, it likely has some effect on their self-worth. Even in a fail-fast/learn-fast environment, it still hurts to let go. If a product is stopped, people will inevitably start to wonder where this leaves them in their careers.

Share as much as you can

If there are good reasons for the shutdown and you can share them, do so. Don’t leave your team hanging, wondering about what they could have done or did wrong. You didn’t reach the numbers and there’s no way you can in the foreseeable future? The company needs to put their focus elsewhere? It’s easy to try to sugarcoat things (so as to not hurt anybody’s feelings), but it’s not helping anyone to be left in the dark.

Find the right time

Imagine someone suddenly tells you that your product will be stopped. This is especially hard if you thought things were going well. So if possible, don’t just make one big announcement and expect everyone to go “alright!”. Consider building up to the moment by letting the team know what is going on. You don’t need to run around telling everyone what’s at stake, but at least let your team know that there are discussions about a potential change to the product.

Also, make sure that the most affected and relevant people (e.g. your team members) know first. It may be more convenient to make one big announcement to all stakeholders, but show some respect to the people who put the most work in and tell them first. They will also feel better prepared when faced with questions from the rest of the org.

Think about your message

Even if you weren’t able to prepare the team up front, you can still convey the message so it doesn’t come as a shock. Tell your team that it’s not about them personally and that they did a good job. Show that you are approachable for questions once the dust has settled.

It helps if you have a clear outlook about the next steps, but don’t go into too much detail at that stage. People might first need to grasp what’s going on before they can go into planning mode again. If you are not the people manager, make sure they are onboard as well, because something like this ultimately affects the career development of every individual. It also helps to schedule one-on-one meetings for later on to address any doubts or questions that people don’t want to share in a bigger group.

Leave time to reflect and adapt

Don’t expect everybody to be on board right away. Remember that you probably have known about this a bit longer than the other team members. Let them know that it’s okay to feel frustrated and unproductive. If you think it helps you can also share how you feel. Just be aware that the team might look at you for support and that it doesn’t help if you fall apart in front of them. When I was in this situation, I tried to see the situation matter-of-factly and tell things as they were, while still acknowledging that the situation was hard for everyone.

Promote your team internally

When a product is stopped in a bigger company, chances are good that your team members will move to other products internally. In this case you want to make sure that a discontinued product is not negatively affecting their reputation. When our product was stopped, my biggest goal was to let everybody in the company know that this was not down to the team. I tried to support my team members to find jobs elsewhere in the company by telling other managers what talents they had to offer.

It’s up to you

It will always hurt to put a stop to your product. But in most cases, they are very good reasons to do so. As a product leader, you are in the position to help your team through this transition. The situation might still suck, but at least your team members won’t feel like they got hit by a train. You need to show them that you care. Because in the end, that’s all you can do.