#470 User Feedback Retro from Cycle 11

This week was the second week of cool down from Cycle 11, which means it’s User Feedback Retro week.

We run this retro at the end of every product cycle as a great way to stop, listen, and realign before the next cycle kicks off.

It’s one of the few meetings where product, design, and sales all sit together and say, “Okay, what are we hearing out there, and what does it really mean?”

Here are a few highlights from this week’s session:

Always fun to hear what people love:

These are the reminders that even when we’re deep in bugs and feature requests, the core experience still resonates.

The good news: Parabol gets people talking, even at companies where retros are usually awkward or quiet.

The challenge: teams still get stuck in complaint loops. They vent, but don’t reach solutions. Some users want more real-time nudges or insights during a conversation… but also don’t really trust AI to do it yet. (that’s fair.)

This tells us the future of “assistive activities” needs to be thoughtful, subtle, and optional.

One user described AI summaries as “drama queens” and another said they weren’t helpful. On the flip side, other teams love them for keeping everyone aligned, especially when people miss meetings. So the value is there, but the guardrails need tightening.

A few recurring asks:

This is the classic tension of “Parabol should guide me” vs “Parabol should get out of my way.”

Exports are still a sticking point. Luckily this is an area that is already on our roadmap.

Cycle 12 planning starts soon. The feedback from this retro will directly shape what we prioritize next.

We’re starting to see folks winding down a little as we approach the end of the year. We should expect some last meetings before any holiday breaks and then a fast ramp back up at the beginning of the year.

…prototyped MCP functionality for Parabol. We’re looking at the first set of tools and resources that can be used by AI agents to interact with Parabol functionality. We’re looking at how we expose to other tools, and use MCP integrations with other tools within our app.

…worked on a new and improved CSV import and export UI. This new functionality will support folks both exporting data from Parabol, and importing data into Parabol. These data can be themed, prioritized, estimated, ranked — i.e. shaped in all sorts of ways to drive planning, decision-making, analysis, etc.

…explored ranking UX. We’re looking at a few different ranking activities and how to implement those as just-in-time activities kicked off within Pages, or as stand-alone anonymous tools that folks can use casually.

…engaged Enterprise customers on feedback and expansion. We continuously check in with our customers to see how things are going, what could go better, and what’s missing. We’ve had insightful conversations on how new features like Insights and Pages might best serve their needs, how to serve advanced use cases, and how to make better use of integrations.

…met with partners in the public sector to explore expansion and new development. It’s important to look at needs and direction at scale and over time with our friends in the government and regulated industries. We anticipate how to best serve those needs, and how our roadmap can better align with the challenges they want to solve with software.

…continue with an extended cool-down cycle. We plan on kicking off our next product development cycle after the holidays. For now we are reflecting on recent progress and challenges, exploring new ideas and prototypes, and shaping up our plans for next year.