The Triage & Velocity Decision Matrix
by Brandon Chu • VP of Product (at time of recording) at Shopify
Former investment banker and Kraft Foods employee who pivoted to tech by founding a startup (Tunezy). After an acquisition, he worked at FreshBooks before joining Shopify, where he spent 7+ years scaling from PM to VP, eventually leading Product Acceleration.
🎙️ Episode Context
Brandon Chu, VP of Product at Shopify, discusses the unique product culture at Shopify, emphasizing their 'digital by default' approach and the importance of 'founder skills' for PMs. He explores the nuances of Platform Product Management, specifically the need to stack-rank constituents. The conversation also covers his philosophy on decision-making velocity, the career-accelerating power of writing, and how Shopify uses 'Bursts' to maintain connection in a remote-first world.
Problem It Solves
Prevents decision fatigue and bottlenecks where PMs slow down engineering teams by over-analyzing minor choices.
Framework Overview
A framework for managing the overwhelming volume of decisions a Product Manager faces by categorizing them based on stakes and reversibility to optimize for speed versus quality.
📊 Decision Matrix
The Danger Zone (High Impact, Irreversible)
High Velocity Zone (Low Impact, Reversible)
The Noise (Low Impact, Reversible)
The Trap (Low Impact, Irreversible)
When to Use
Daily, when faced with a queue of questions, feature requests, or trade-offs from the team.
Common Mistakes
Treating every decision with equal weight; falling into 'analysis paralysis' on reversible UI tweaks.
Real World Example
Deciding to change a button color (reversible, low impact) should take seconds (gut check), whereas changing the data privacy policy for the entire platform (irreversible, high impact) requires weeks of deep work.
If you're going to be a really good PM, you have to have that skill... spend all your time on those very few important decisions. And for all other decisions, you should just literally just go with whatever your gut is.
— Brandon Chu