My Philosophy
on Product Management

I lean heavily on competitor/market research and customer interviews to make decisions, but there must be more than that. I don't believe there is a right or wrong way to approach Product Management, per se. Every team, and every project for that matter, is going to require a mental pivot of some sort. There is no one magic formula to success. In my time on the ladder, I've seen different approaches to the process, and adopted my own philosophy on what traits and actions bring healthy forward-momentum and success to a Product Team.

A Product, A Puzzle

You start with the edges, find pieces you know fit together and use them as a foundation for the rest. But you have to be able to look at The Picture on the Box to understand what the finished puzzle looks like. 

Now- that picture may change over time. And you will never proudly plug in the final piece and declare victory. The product manager's role is to decide which pieces of the puzzle reveal the most of the picture, fastest. Will placing three little pieces complete more of the puzzle than taking a month to place one bigger piece? BUT-Will placing that larger piece show more of the main focus of the image, and unlock edges of other important pieces? Ah, the lure of the puzzle. 

This is how I make sense of what I do and how I approach it. This is my only puzzle analogy, and I'll leave it here.

The Big Picture

Data is like GPS, it can't tell you where to go but it can tell you the best way to get there. The Product Manager first has to have a full understanding of The Big Picture. It's not enough to just use data to play devil's advocate, searching for safe passage in place of a clear vision.

Some of your best data comes straight from the experts on your team who have their hands and heads in the product every day. The designers, UX, web devs and engineers that have been building this product have an invaluable point of view. They can see the blind spots. Each is a master in their field and can tell you, often with gusto, what is moving in the wrong direction and what product success looks like to them. This too, is valuable data that must be captured and synthesized with the rest!

I've seen teams demoralized by paths of work that didn't align with the consensus of the team. This is bound to happen from time to time, regardless. Designers, for example, are creatures of passion and instinct. You can't quantify design with data, or directly measure the success of being on-trend. The next line of work everyone wants work on may not make the most sense in context of the bigger picture. What I've found is, that if you bring everyone along on the Journey of Discovery, and make sure everyone's voice is heard and taken into consideration, you'll have a team of enthusiastic humans who trust you, and are eager to tackle the next task, whatever it ends up being. 

How do you do that? 

First, let them dream big. Let them tell you what the perfect product would look like, how it would work, and why what they build could change the world. Let them get excited. Capture all of that information during a group brainstorm, and assure them it won't be the last time they see it. 

Then, take them on the ride.  Assign team members small tasks to help gather data. Ask a UX designer to spend a few hours on XYZ website and make a spreadsheet of all the features that competitor offers. Ask a designer to make a mood board of what trends are hot on social. Have a teammate sit in to take notes during a customer interview. It's good for people to get that outside perspective first-hand, and then see their research being included during decision making. Ask an engineer to... never-mind, they're busy. 

Group Synthesis 

I don't like packed schedules filled with endless meetings either.  What I do like, are short, eventful meetings where huge leaps forward are made quickly. Every time a segment of data is collected, I like to put 30 mins on everyone's calendar to quickly jump in and group overlapping themes of Discovery together. When you've helped group the results yourself, and you see that the idea you were personally championing has less data points supporting its prioritization than others, it's easier to get on board with the clear winners and get it done. Also, I like to find the overlaps in different tracks of work, to show teammates how doing this task first, gets us closer to unlocking the part they're excited to get to. Because they're usually right- that thing IS important and we should do it!

I can empathize with the team, because I remember how it felt to be that designer, wanting to know “why” we were doing what we were doing. When my mentor took me on my first Journey of Discovery (cue wind-chime sounds and flutes soaked in reverb), I found it incredibly humbling to realize that maybe- just maybe, I didn't really know-it-all. It was a huge perspective shift and "a-ha" moment for me. I wasn't thinking only about the design anymore, I was thinking about the product as a whole. I believe if I can offer everyone on my team a bit of that perspective, my team grows in power.