Friday, August 14 · Decision brief
What should we do next, and why?
One screen. The highest-leverage move, grounded in evidence, with the smallest next step the team can take today.
Top recommendationhigh confidence
Make SSO setup optional during onboarding. Move it to a post-invite step gated only when an admin enables enterprise policies.
The SSO gate sits directly on the step where activation is bleeding, and three independent signals (funnel, churn interview, qualitative review) point to the same cause. Decoupling SSO from invites is the smallest change that addresses the dominant hypothesis.
Evidence
- Configure Workspace step 62% → 49%.
- By the time IT got involved we'd already moved to Linear.
- First tool that actually helps me come to a decision.
Assumptions
- Deferring SSO does not materially raise security incidents in week 1.
- The activation lift is causally tied to the gate, not seasonality.
Risks
- Workspaces enter production without governance — mitigate with a 14-day SSO prompt.
- If seasonality is the real driver, the metric won't move and we've spent a sprint.
Grounded in
Open memory →Current evidence plus 4 items from organizational memory.
Current evidence6
Applicable principles3
- Optimize for activation before monetization.Revenue compounds on retained users; pricing changes can't fix a leaky funnel. When in doubt, fix the bottleneck closest to first value.activationfunnelonboardinginvite
- Measure outcomes within 14 days.A prediction without a read date is a wish. Retention and conversion lag activation — set the window when you decide, not after.activationmetric
- Enterprise features require design-partner validation.Procurement scopes look the same on a slide and very different on a security questionnaire. No SCIM/SAML/audit feature ships without a written acceptance from at least one design partner.enterprise
Relevant lessons0
No prior lessons echo this brief yet.
Next action
Ship a feature-flagged soft-skip to 50% of new workspaces and read the 7-day cohort by Friday.
Unread signals
5
Triage drives prep
Problems in prep
4
1 ready to decide
Open decisions
1
Awaiting outcome
Prediction hit rate
50%
2 reviewed
Highest-leverage problems
Open workspace →- 86Day-1 activation is collapsing in the Configure Workspace step3 signals · 1,200 users · effort M06Running
- 71Enterprise SSO/SCIM commitments have no owner2 signals · 8 users · effort L03Prep
- 54Saved view filters reset on tab switch (post-2.41 regression)1 signals · 320 users · effort S03Prep
- 42Decisions surface is hard to find after a call1 signals · 600 users · effort S01Signal
New signal
Inbox →- customerover 56 years agoWe churned because onboarding asks our admins to configure SSO before they can invite anyone. By the time IT got involved we'd already moved to Linear.
- slackover 56 years agoThird enterprise this month asking for audit log export. Two are in renewal cycle Q3.
- bugover 56 years agoSaved view filters reset on tab switch for ~4% of sessions. Started after release 2.41.
- ideaover 56 years agoWhat if the inbox itself was the home page? Most teams open the app, then open notifications.
- screenshotover 56 years agoUser attached screenshot of empty Decisions view with caption: 'is this where my old decisions go? I can't find last week's call.'
Last reviewed decision
Reviewed over 56 years agoPrediction met
Move the upgrade prompt out of the editor surface
Session length lifted 14%. Paid conversion dropped 6% — within the tolerance band but worth a follow-up test on a contextual paywall.
See lessons