The Art of Feature Killing: Why Great PMs Have the Courage to Cut
As product managers, we are trained to build. We celebrate launches, we measure adoption, and we iterate on feedback. But there is an equally important skill that rarely gets the spotlight. Here is;
Nugget #4: “Don’t hesitate to kill the feature when it’s necessary”
This might be the most uncomfortable yet crucial decision you will make as a PM. Let me explain why this matters so much, and why it is a sign of strength, not failure.
Every Feature Is a Cost, Not Just an Asset
Here is the hard truth: Every feature you maintain comes at a cost:
- Engineering resources spent for maintaining legacy code
- Design complexity that makes users confused
- Technical debt that accumulates with each integration
- User cognitive load that increases with each option
- Team attention diverted from more higher-impact opportunities
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: Your Biggest Enemy
“But we spent six months building this feature!”
The sunk cost fallacy is the silent killer of good product management. We all have been there: You have spent months planning, designing, and building. The team has worked very hard. But after launch, the data tells a different story: low adoption, negative feedback, or no impact at all.
It is tempting to think, “Maybe if we just tweak it a little…” or “Let’s give it more time…” But sunk costs are irrelevant. What matters is whether the feature is delivering value now and whether it aligns with your product’s vision.
Remember: Features are not children. They are tools. And tools that no longer serve their purpose should be retired.
Complexity Is the Enemy of Great Products
Every feature you add increases the complexity of your product. More complexity means:
- A steeper learning curve for users
- More bugs to fix
- More cognitive load for your team and users
Think of your product as a garden. Regular pruning is not just recommended — it is essential for growth. Without it, resources get diverted to dying branches, and the entire garden suffers.
The most beautiful gardens are not the ones with the most plants; they are the ones where each plant has room to flourish.
How to Know When It’s Time to Kill a Feature
Data and user feedback don’t lie. Here are the key signals to watch for:
- Low Usage Despite Adequate Exposure If less than 20% of your users engage with a feature, it is a candidate for removal.
- Negative User Feedback If users are consistently confused or frustrated by a feature, it is doing more harm than good.
- High Maintenance Cost Relative to Business Value Are you spending 30% of development time supporting a feature that drives only 5% of revenue?
- Strategic Misalignment with Product Vision Even popular features should be questioned if they don’t align with where your product is heading.
- Disproportionate Support Burden Features that generate excessive support tickets are often poorly designed or solving the wrong problem.
How to Kill Features Gracefully
Killing a feature doesn’t mean yanking it away overnight. Consider these approaches:
- Make decisions based on data, not emotion Use analytics to track usage, engagement, and satisfaction.
- Embrace the “Sunset” approach Don’t just yank features away. Give users a heads-up and offer alternatives.
- Communicate clearly with users Explain why the feature is being removed and what alternatives exist.
- Extract transferable learnings What worked? What didn’t? How will these insights inform future development?
- Celebrate the removal internally Frame feature removal as a success — because it is. You are making your product better.
Final Thoughts
The next time you’re in a product meeting and someone suggests cutting a feature, pay attention to the resistance that arises — including your own. That discomfort is natural, but pushing through it is what separates good product managers from great ones.
Killing a feature isn’t failure — it’s progress. It’s about making room for what truly matters and staying focused on delivering value to your users.
Remember: Your job isn’t to build features. Your job is to solve problems for users in the most elegant way possible. Sometimes, that means having the courage to kill what isn’t working — even when you were the one who built it.
In product management, addition by subtraction isn’t just a possibility — it’s often the path to excellence.
