From Bugs to Bloat: Product Debt, KPIs, and the Cost of Features

In this episode of "How Many CTOs Does It Take?" podcast, hosts Scott Porad and Brad Hefta-Gaub dig into the messy reality of product management effectiveness, and what happens when bugs reveal deeper product debt.

They kick things off with a retrospective on a critical login bug that exposed lingering legacy code, sparking a conversation about how product decisions and technical debt intertwine. From there, the discussion expands into the challenges of measuring product management impact, balancing ROI vs. customer friction, and the growing need for KPIs that capture both engineering and product effectiveness.

Along the way, Scott and Brad wrestle with big questions:

• How do you know if product management is "working"?
• What KPIs actually measure value delivered versus features shipped?
• Why do teams struggle to prune software bloat, and what does it really cost?
• Where should the line be drawn between engineering metrics and product owner accountability?

Whether you're a CTO, product leader, or engineer, this episode shines a light on the cost of keeping old features alive, the hidden tradeoffs behind bug triage, and how better metrics can drive smarter product choices.

• 00:00 Introduction and Welcome
• 01:09 Incident Retrospective Discussion
• 05:26 Challenges in Product Management
• 16:40 Engineering KPIs and Performance Metrics
• 18:45 Evaluating Product Management Effectiveness
• 27:28 Closing Remarks and Outro

Resources:

• How Many CTOs Pod: https://howmanyctospod.com
• Scott Porad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/scottporad/
• Brad Hefta-Gaub: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradheftagaub/

#TechPodcast #EngineeringPodcast #DevTalks #PodcastForDevs #HowManyCtos #Podcast #Ctos #CtoPodcast #Technology #Engineering #SoftwareDevelopment #Entrepreneurship #TechLeadership #ProductManagement #ProductKPIs #EngineeringMetrics #ProductDebt #SoftwareBloat #ROI