Thread by @alexcharlie

There’s an old PM joke that goes like this:

PMs hate Spider-Man. He gets to say “With great power comes great responsibility”. PMs have to say “With great responsibility comes NO power”.

Funny... but untrue. PMs love Spider-Man and they have a lot of power. Thread 👇

1/ The Spider-Man joke always bugged me because it seemed like something a PM might say to display some false modesty at best, or because they really had no idea how to lead at worst. Two ways you don’t want to portray yourself as a PM.

2/ I’ve gotten to see so many great product managers do their work. All of them have enough power and they understand their responsiblity to use it wisely. None of them have ever told me the joke.

If you’re a new, aspiring-to-be-great PM, you should know your power.

3/ The first power PMs learn to tap is the power of the user. When you start working on your first feature, you find that users have stories, problems, needs. You translate those things into specs or PRDs. This just seems like busy work and not power at first.

4/ When you get challenged on your spec, you cite the user. “We have to fix this for our users, they are having these specific issues...” People like solving user problems so you win that argument. This form of power takes you pretty far.

5/ You get better and better at telling user stories with data, experimentation, and research. Being able to bring evidence to your team about what ALL of the users are doing settles even more debates.

This power is great for setting strategy or defining product scope.

6/ But!!! This power has limits! Anecdotes are persuasive but they don’t show the full picture. Behavioral data can seem like a solve for that but it’s also limited. A bigger, blue-er button will win the A/B test but there’s no substitute for good UX judgement. Be responsible!

7/ Another early power source is the power gained from organizing the team. Some Jr. PMs get started as project managers. Being the team organizer gives you power over a lot of decision makers in ways you wouldn’t expect.

8/ The Sr. PM may chart the overall direction for the ship, but the Jr. is actually at the wheel, making 1,000 small decisions, adjusting that wheel a bit each time. What meeting AIs are at the top of the notes doc? What convos are teed up at team sync? Who gets reminded of what?

9/ We tend to think of power in the big moments—sweeping statements of strategy, high stakes decisions. Power does reside there, but it also exists in the small places. A lot of micro decisions, over time with diligence, actually maneuver the big ship.

10/ Organizing can feel like grunt work but even that is valuable because eng and design teams respect whoever does the dirty work. Spider-Man saves us from world-threatening enemies, but he’s loved as the “friendly neighborhood Spider-Man” because he fights street crime too.

11/ Organizing power is so strong that some PMs never give it up to a Jr. When I joined Reddit as VP Product, I took notes for every meeting I was in. It confused people. It helped me set the pace.

12/ The last power that I’ll mention today (among many others) is the power to set vision. A PM who can share a compelling vision, and can maintain the team’s commitment to it, will have a lot of power.

13/ What is a compelling vision? An inspired communication of the future we are building together. Describe what the product looks like in 2,3,4 years. It’s like seeing and communicating the future... PM spidey-sense.

14/ Common mistake: Vision is not the same as mission! Mission statements describe *what we do* (Make the world open/connected; Organize worlds information, etc.).

Vision statements describe *what it looks like when we’re done doing.*

15/ A vision is more important than a mission. A good vision should give the team goosebumps when they hear it. It is why they wake up in the morning—to make the vision a reality.

16/ Once you’ve got a compelling vision get commitment from the team and maintain it. You’ll repeat yourself a lot. This will drive urgency and pace like nothing else because you’re helping people stay accountable to themselves and to eachother.

17/ I’ll conclude with the power PMs DON’T have, and what the joke is referring to: no ability to fire or punish the development team if they don’t do what you say. This power is not granted for good reason—because it’s the worst possible way to motivate knowledge workers.

18/ Startups endeavor to solve problems that have never been solved before. That takes ingenuity and commitment from everyone involved. A few people with fiat power at the top and an army under them afraid of consequences won’t accomplish much.

19/ It’s probably why there are few startup successes built with contractor teams. Also partly why so many aspiring CEOs choose PM as their discipline of choice. The constraints of PM create good outcomes and better leadership habits.

20/ So if you’re a new PM, don’t worry about the jokes. Take a moment to appreciate Spider-Man and Uncle Ben.

Recognize the great power you have, and use it responsibly. 🤟