Balance Bugs and Feature Delivery

Project Context

At NotionFlow, a B2B workflow SaaS company, the product team is preparing the next 6-week release for its enterprise task automation module. The squad has 8 engineers, 1 designer, 1 QA lead, and you as the PM. Leadership wants a new bulk-edit feature shipped this quarter because it is tied to two pending enterprise renewals, but customer-reported bugs have increased over the last month.

Key Stakeholders

The VP of Product wants the bulk-edit feature released by quarter-end to support revenue goals. The Head of Customer Success is pushing for faster bug resolution because 6 of the top 20 accounts have reported reliability issues. Engineering leadership is concerned about team capacity and wants to reduce production instability before adding more scope.

Constraints

The team has 3 sprints remaining before the release date, with a total capacity of 120 engineering points. The current backlog includes 18 open bugs: 4 critical, 6 high-severity, and 8 medium-severity. The bulk-edit feature is estimated at 55 points, while committed platform maintenance work will consume 20 points. No additional headcount or budget is available, and one senior engineer is allocated 30% time to support a parallel infrastructure migration.

Complications

1. Two critical bugs affect enterprise admins, but root cause analysis is incomplete.
2. Sales has already told one major customer the bulk-edit feature is "on track" for this release.
3. QA automation coverage for the task automation module is only 62%, increasing regression risk.

Deliverables

1. Create a sprint planning approach that balances bug fixes and new feature work across the next 3 sprints.
2. Define how you would prioritize bugs by severity, customer impact, and release risk.
3. Recommend whether the bulk-edit feature should launch fully, in a limited release, or be partially descoped.
4. Outline stakeholder communication and escalation points if trade-offs change mid-release.
5. Identify the top execution risks and mitigation steps for the release plan.