Hello Reader,
As I’ve spent the last several weeks focused on ramping back up at Eventbrite, I wanted to circle back on a topic that continues to be top of mind in serving organizations cross-functionally, product launch readiness.
Ever heard from your Support team that they’ve learned about a product feature from the public changelog?
I have—and it’s not a good look.
Across my time leading product operations and programs at Microsoft, GitHub, and Eventbrite, I’ve seen one pattern repeat:
Product launches often catch customer-facing teams by surprise.
It’s not due to apathy—it’s a gap in rhythm, visibility, and sometimes clear accountability. Without an intentional system to align Product with Sales, Support, and Success, you’re inviting last-minute escalations, internal fire drills, and frustrated customers.
Here’s one approach that’s worked across orgs of different sizes and stages:
In one case, Sales and Success leaders voiced frustration to Product leaders over several disruptive launches. New features were going live without clear internal communication—and sometimes, Support agents were reading about changes the same way customers were: from the public changelog.
The impact?
⚠️ Sales couldn’t confidently position the product.
⚠️ Success teams scrambled to answer how new features worked.
⚠️ Support had no documentation or training.
⚠️ Trust began to erode—internally and externally.
It wasn’t a tooling issue. We had a simple place to track these launches. It was an issue with our readiness rhythm. There wasn’t the attention and clear routines to drive a standard and level of consistency we needed.
A practice I’ve implemented to close the gap between Product and customer-facing teams before includes:
1. Create a shared tracking system
I’ve had success using tools like GitHub Issues, Azure Boards, or even Google Sheets/Docs—whatever fits your org’s stack. The key is not the tool—it’s visibility and attention.
For example, I used:
✴️ Templates (e.g. within GitHub Issue) to standardize submissions for upcoming launches
✴️ Kanban board to track each feature through phases (e.g. Alpha, Private Beta, Limited Public Beta, Public Beta, General Availability, Deprecated, Sunset)
✴️ Automations (e.g. GitHub Actions) to triage entries, send reminders, and @mention key stakeholders that either needed to be informed or were responsible for readiness activities
2. Establish a weekly cross-functional review
This wasn’t a status meeting—it was a readiness alignment checkpoint.
Attendees included:
👤 Product Managers and/or Product Ops Managers to provide a short brief about their upcoming changes
👤 Select representatives from Product Marketing, Docs, DevRel, Sales Ops, Support, and Customer Success
These sessions, focused on user-impacting releases 0-60 days out, created space to:
- Ask clarifying questions
- Identify customer impact early
- Coordinate enablement and messaging plans
- Ensure changelog entries and comms were clear and ready
This simple rhythm created clarity, not complexity:
✅ Customer-facing teams felt confident walking into conversations post-launch
✅ PMs got better questions earlier in the process—not post-launch escalations
✅ Product Marketing could craft sharper narratives, faster
✅ Customers began to trust the changelog as a reliable source of truth
The result was a notable reduction in launch-related escalations and improvement in cross-functional trust.
So what about you?
🤔 How often do your Sales and Support teams get to review upcoming launches 30–60 days in advance?
🤔 What’s the single source of truth for internal launch visibility in your org today?
I’d love to hear how you're solving this in your team. What’s working well—and where are you still feeling gaps?
Hit reply and let me know.
Until next time,
Alex
