The where people drop off question is the one most analytics tools answer badly. They'll show you: '43% of users drop off at Step 3.' But they won't tell you WHY. So you're stuck guessing:
Is Step 3 confusing?
Is it too much friction?
Did they get distracted?
Are they missing context from Step 2?
The tools that win here are the ones that combine the WHAT (drop-off data) with the WHY (session recordings, user interviews, qualitative context). To answer your questions:
Yes, especially if it prioritizes insights over vanity metrics
'Why are users signing up but not reaching activation?' - specifically, where in the first session do they get confused and leave
The 'what does done mean' question is underrated. I've seen teams argue for weeks because one person thinks done = shipped, another thinks done = documented, and another thinks done = customer-facing. Then they blame each other for 'not following through.' The system never defined it. Same with 'Who owns the decision vs. who owns the work', when that's unclear, you get 5 people doing 80% of the same task or 0 people doing it because everyone thinks someone else is. To answer your question: Thought we had a communication problem in my former team. Turned out we had 3 different Slack channels, 2 project management tools, and no single source of truth. People weren't bad communicators; they were navigating a fragmented system.
