Meeting types · Product development
Product development meetings that spend the hour on decisions, not status
Sprint reviews, roadmap syncs and squad rounds have the same failure: the update takes the time and the decision gets the leftovers. Curact moves the update into the week before, so the meeting is only the part that needs people.
And a meeting here doesn't have to be a call. Some product teams keep a short live session; others run the whole round async, from phones, across timezones.
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What should a product development meeting agenda include?
A product development meeting is a recurring session to review progress and align on trade-offs. It works best when updates are shared in writing before the meeting, so the live time is spent on decisions and blockers. Twenty-five minutes live plus async prep during the week is enough for most teams.
- 01Collect team updates in writing a few days before the call.
- 02Use a standard template for squads to report shipped, slipped, and blocked items.
- 03Accept or dismiss agent suggestions to build the deck.
- 04Open the session only on trade-offs and risks that need a decision.
- 05Name an owner and a due date for every change agreed.
- 06Carry open items forward to the next round with their status.
Today
How this meeting runs in most product teams
A recurring slot, a deck assembled by whoever owns the process, and a round of updates that everyone half-listens to because only their own part concerns them. Anyone who couldn't make it reads a summary — if someone wrote one.
The deck is one person's evening
A lead reconstructs three squads' week from memory the night before. It is the least informed version of the most expensive hour.
Status crowds out decisions
Twenty-five of thirty minutes go to what already happened. The two trade-offs that needed a room get four minutes at the end.
The loudest squad sets the agenda
Airtime tracks confidence, not risk. The team quietly blocked on something is the one that says least.
Decisions leave no trace
"We agreed to descope that" survives as long as the memory of whoever was on the call. Next sprint it is discussed again.
The flow
Before, during and after — with the call optional
The same three phases the rest of Curact runs on, shaped for a product team that ships every week.
Before
Agents read the Slack channels and boards you point them at and propose slides with a suggested owner. Each squad gets a personal link and writes its own page during the week. The host accepts or dismisses everything in one review inbox — nothing reaches the deck unreviewed.
During
Optional. If you meet, it is a short session on the two or three trade-offs that need a room, with everyone answering from their phone — including the people who are only half-awake in another timezone. If you don't meet, the same blocks are answered async and the round still closes.
After
Decisions and results become follow-ups with an owner and a due date. The recap is a by-product of what happened rather than a separate writing job, and can be posted back to Slack. Open items return on the next occurrence with their status.
The collector slide. It becomes a link posted to the product channel, and every reply the host approves turns into its own slide.
A squad's own page, written from their personal link rather than reconstructed by someone else the night before.
Example
What one week actually looks like
Three squads, one recurring product round, no extra process owner.
- Monday
A contribution collector goes out to the product channel: what shipped, what slipped, what needs a decision. Watch agents start reading the boards and channels you connected.
- Wednesday
Each squad opens its personal link and writes its own page — a headline, a short body, a screenshot. Work saves as they go and the link can be shared inside the team.
- Thursday
The host opens the review inbox: agent suggestions and submitted squad pages in one list, accepted or dismissed one by one or in bulk. The deck is finished a day early.
- Friday
Either a 25-minute call on the shared screen with everyone answering from their phone — or nobody meets, and the same blocks are answered async over the day.
- Monday after
The follow-up list carries the decisions with owners and due dates into the next occurrence, where they come back with a status instead of being rediscussed.
The decision slide on the shared screen, everyone answering from their phone — including the people who could not make the call.
The decision leaves the meeting written down with an owner and a date, not as a memory of who agreed to what.
Building blocks
The slides and agents that fit a product round
Nothing here is locked to a format — start from a ready-made deck and rewrite, reorder or delete.
Team spotlight
A standing page per squad that reappears every round, written by the squad rather than about it.
Contribution collector
One question to a whole channel; the answers become slides with the contributor credited.
KPI block
One slide per number with a named owner, nudged for a fresh figure before the meeting.
Questions from the room
Anyone can ask from their phone, including the people who are not there. Answers stay visible after.
Scales and polls
Confidence in the release, risk on a scale, a quick vote on which of two options — from phones, anonymously.
Watch agents
Plain-language instructions for what to keep an eye on outside the company, with a precision setting that keeps them quiet unless it matters.
Agenda
A 25-minute product round, and the days around it
Take this template, adjust it to your squads, and run it where your team already works. Curact handles the async collection; the live session is for the trade-offs.
Yours to use, with or without Curact. No signup for the template.
Templates
Three ready-made versions of this meeting
Pick the depth that fits the week. Every template opens as a real deck you can edit, reorder or throw away.
Short
The 15-minute squad check
One squad, one demo, one decision — for the weeks that don't need the full round.
14 min · 5 slides
- 1.Product Review — Atlas squad
- 2.What shipped this week
- 3.Thirty-second look at the invite flow
- 4.CSV export: ship to everyone now, or gate behind a flag for a week?
- 5.What we decided
Standard
The full squad round
Three squads, a demo, confidence in the milestone and the trade-offs that need a room.
30 min · 9 slides
- 1.Product Review
- 2.Join in
- 3.Atlas — this week
- 4.Comet — this week
- 5.Demo: the new invite flow
- + 4 more
In depth
The quarterly roadmap review
A wider look across all squads: the roadmap against reality, risks named out loud, and the calls that shape the next quarter.
58 min · 13 slides
- 1.Product Review — Quarterly
- 2.Join in
- 3.Roadmap against reality
- 4.Atlas — the quarter
- 5.Comet — the quarter
- + 8 more
FAQ
Questions product teams ask first
Does this replace our sprint review?
No. It changes where the review happens. The demo, the status and the numbers are written and read during the week, so the live part — if you keep one — is spent on the decisions and trade-offs that genuinely need people in the same place. Teams that keep a sprint review usually shorten it rather than delete it.
We already do async standups in Slack. What does this add?
Standup threads scroll away. A Curact series keeps the same structure between rounds: each squad's page, the numbers with an owner, and the open decisions carried forward. The Slack updates still happen — the difference is that they land somewhere that has a memory and a follow-up list.
Can we run it with no call at all?
Yes. Every block — the squad pages, the questions, the polls and scales, the decision list — can be answered from a phone or a laptop without anyone presenting. Live mode is one way to run a meeting, not a requirement.
How do people without an account take part?
They open a link or scan a code and answer from their phone. Contributors who write a slide get a personal link, usually as a Slack message, and can share it inside their team so several people work on the same page.
What happens to the decisions afterwards?
Decisions and results become follow-ups with an owner and a due date, the recap can be posted back to Slack, and the open items reappear on the next occurrence in the series with their status.
How much of this does the AI actually do?
Agents read the sources you point them at — Slack channels, Trello boards, the KPI register, and sources outside the company for watch agents — and propose findings and slides. They never publish. Everything waits in a review inbox until a person accepts it, and an agent cannot overwrite a slide someone has already approved.
Instead of
What does this replace?
Most product reviews are run with four or five tools. The tools are great — the manual labor required to move status between them is the problem.
A deck tool for the review
One person spends an evening building it from three different sources.
Squads write their own pages in the week and agents propose slides from connected boards, so the deck is a by-product of work.
Standup threads in Slack
Great for today, but they scroll away and have no memory next week.
Slack updates land in a series that carries open items to the next round with their status already attached.
A whiteboard for the roadmap
A beautiful canvas that nobody reopens until the next big session.
Roadmap slides are part of the recurring round, so progress against the plan is visible every week instead of once a quarter.
Curact does not replace Slack, your boards or your video call. It sits next to them: the deck is the meeting, and the tools you already pay for stay where they are.
Built by Textalk
Curact is made by Textalk AB in Sweden, a software company that has run its own distributed weekly meeting for years. This is the tool we built for ourselves first.
Participants need no account
People join from a link or a code on screen and answer from their phone. Only the people who build the deck need a login.
Works next to your stack
Slack for the reminders and the recap, your boards for the source material, any video tool for the call itself.
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The trial is the full product, not a stripped demo. Nothing to cancel if you walk away.
Written and reviewed by the Curact team. Last reviewed August 2026.
Other meetings teams run this way
Sales
Reps write their own pages before the meeting and KPI owners are nudged for a fresh figure, so the call is coaching, not reporting.
Read moreCustomer feedback
Everyone who talks to customers writes their themes on a link beforehand, and each agreed fix leaves with a named owner.
Read moreAll-hands / town hall
Questions asked and upvoted before the meeting, teams writing their own spotlight, and the deck readable afterwards for every time zone.
Read moreRun your next product round with the update already done
Set up the series once, connect the channels and boards you already use, and let the week do the preparation. Keep the live session or drop it — the meeting works either way.
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