About This Series
Plan of Record: A Framework for Prioritizing Work in SaaS R&D
This is a long-form reference series for R&D leaders who need a reliable, scalable way to prioritize product and engineering work.
I’ve implemented this Plan of Record (PoR) prioritization framework at multiple SaaS companies — from early-stage startups to larger businesses with complex product portfolios, multiple teams, and resource constraints. It was built to solve a practical problem: how to make good decisions about what work to do and when to do it — especially when everything feels like a priority and capacity is limited.
The PoR is not a tool or a template. It’s an operating system for managing priorities across product and engineering — grounded in cross-functional alignment, trust, and transparency. If implemented well, it creates a single source of truth about what the business is actually committed to delivering.
This series is for:
SaaS R&D leaders (CPTOs, CPOs, VPs of Eng/Product) looking to improve decision quality and delivery consistency
Founders and CEOs trying to scale their product org without losing control of priorities
Product managers, engineering leads, and technical operators tasked with managing roadmaps under constraint
The content is structured and progressive — starting with fundamentals and moving through implementation, day-to-day operations, change management, and edge cases. I’ve kept the writing detailed and practical so you can use it as a working reference.
What’s Covered:
Core components of the PoR framework and how they fit together
Pre-requisites: culture, goals, team structure, and customer-centric decision making
Step-by-step guidance on how to build and operate a PoR
How to use PoR as a system for communication, escalation, and trust-building
Common failure modes and how to recover from them
If you’re trying to shift your team from a “best efforts” culture to a commitment-based culture — or if you’re inheriting complexity and need a clear way to get aligned — this framework is built for that.
This isn’t theory. It’s been tested in the field.
— Alex Laats
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