One of my biggest gripes is when I hear people say “my executives just don’t get it.”
Maybe you’re not communicating it well? Maybe you’re not telling the story that’s valuable to them?
As #prodmgmt and #UX people we empathize with our customers all day. Why not our execs?
The biggest question I get asked every week is “how do I get my execs on board with doing great #prodmgmt?”
And when I say how, everyone goes “no, not like that.”
🤔 /1
It’s funny because when I first started as a consultant I used to rant about executives just not “getting it.”
And everyone cheered.
You know what? I was really bad then at getting executives to adopt good practices and listen to me.
Guess what changed? It wasn’t them. /2
This isn’t from me just consulting. I’ve coached hundreds of prodmgrs on telling their story.
One woman knew what she was building was not valuable - couldn’t get her mgrs to listen. We refined her approach. They canceled her project. she’s now a director choosing what to work on
It’s definitely not easy. Interpersonal relationships and communication is not easy.
And there will always be assholes that won’t listen.
But stereotyping all execs seems not to be the way to address this.
And hey, this is just my free advice for today. You do you. 🤷♀️
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There's been a lot of talk about #Airbnb "getting rid" of the #prodmgmt role. From what I can tell, they are morphing this into a more business related role, rather than purely tech. I don't think this is a bad thing. /1
PM has always firmly sat between business, tech, and the user/customer. In SAAS companies, the Product Management role has always been about figuring out how to grow the business by solving customer problems with the right software. /2
In other companies that are not software-native, you saw this being done by GMs of the business, but with the tools available to drive business at the time - sales, marketing, and human operations. /3
I find it funny how many people are asking me what the alternative to SAFe is, like there aren’t thousands of successful companies out there building products without it…
Those who are asking this don’t want to hear the truth, and the truth is context matters for what you implement for each company. So there’s no “one framework to rule them all”. It’s incredibly hard work to set this up in companies BUT there are principles which remain constant.
And that was the point of @cagan’s talk and what I talk about in the Build Trap, etc.
So no, I can’t give you a pretty little diagram where everyone has a box and it defines specifically what to do. I honestly wish I could!
Five things I wish I could go back and tell myself when I was starting in #prodmgmt 🧵/1
You don't have to come up with all the ideas. Ideas can come from anywhere. It's your job to make sure they are the right ideas for the business and the customer /2
Check your ego. While being confident when communicating is important as a Product Manager, you do not want to be perceived as an asshole. #prodmgmt is about influence, not authority. /3
1. Focusing too much on processes and ignoring the roadmap.
While you have to implement the process and structure for the organization, remember you're also the person responsible for vision and direction. You need to balance working on both of these things.
2. Blaming others
"I can't do this because the CXO won't let me." You're now a leader, it's up to you to usher things through. You shouldn't be asking permission of the other leaders, you should be working with them.
No one is coming to save you. You got to take initiative.
Ah airport layovers, time for a thread that keeps coming up.
How do I convince my executives to change/ do things I’d like them to do as good #prodmgmt. Here’s my tips. 🧵 /1
The thing I see people do most often that doesn’t work is not taking the time to understand how other people are being judged for success and what matters to them.
You have to learn to put your proposal in terms that will help the other person. /2
For example, say you have a problem with the Head of Sales. How are they judged for success?
Bookings, new sales, new logos, revenue growth.
Their comp is tied to it. How do you think they feel when you say you need to deprioritize something that they *think* will make $$? /3