Six ways to manage the fast pace & sheer busy-ness of a PM leader role:

1) Use your time better
2) Work more (than you do already)
3) Focus your team on fewer things
4) Delegate more to team, peers, boss
5) Fixate on Optics (not Execution/Impact)
6) Get *a lot* better at the job
Many senior PMs never escape #1-2

Some operate in #3-4

The politicians-as-PMs swear by #5

Very few internalize that #6 is by far their biggest lever

#6 improves the quality & impact of 1-5

#6 doesn't happen solely by doing 1-5 repeatedly

It requires proactive investment
Like any sensible investment, it isn't guaranteed to give you a 2X return the very next morning

That's why many senior PMs & leaders ignore it

They & their teams are on an exhausting, never-ending treadmill of #1-5

They are exhausted, but are no longer aware of the treadmill!!
A few begin to see the treadmill and want to get off it

If that's you, what should you do?

I'll leave you with 5 high leverage investments you can make for yourself:

1) clearer thinking
2) the art of influence
3) strategy
4) getting regular coaching
5) spotting talent & hiring

• • •

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More from @shreyas

2 Oct
Belated Aug 2021 content recap

(and a few recommendations to make up for my lateness)

Types of Product-Market Fit
7 high-value ideas & habits
Impact, Execution, Strategy, Market
Top 5 books for product leaders
Power of why
Product ≠ PM
and more....

Recommendations & recap 👇🏾
Follow @rorysutherland

Rory’s insights on consumer psychology, product positioning, marketing, advertising, and creativity are just brilliant. I try to consume every piece of content he creates.

For example, a large % of my saved podcasts are those with Rory as the guest:
Another person whose content I consume without fail is @shishirmehrotra (CEO at @coda_hq)

Anyone working on products or leading teams will learn a ton from Shishir. I certainly have.
Read 23 tweets
2 Oct
Sep 2021 content recap:

Product team vs Optics team
PM/PMM/Sales roles in SaaS
1st law of B2B SaaS
The Curse of Brilliance
More engineers
True domain expertise & insight
Nuance on good strategy
Most important communication skill
PM Evaluation Framework
Product sense
and more

👇🏾
Are you on a Product team, or is it really an Optics team that just happens to be building products?
A succinct view of PM / PMM / Sales roles in product-led SaaS
Read 20 tweets
27 Sep
It is almost Q4 and that means that annual planning will dominate the lives of many product managers & leaders over the next several weeks (or sadly, months).

Here is your annual reminder about doing annual planning effectively without the BS busy-work:
More resources for you below
A thread on product prioritization:
Read 11 tweets
26 Sep
You might have heard people say:
“Amateurs talk strategy. Professionals talk logistics.”

People conclude from this that, to be a true professional, they should fixate on logistics/operations.

Such conclusions are flawed & can even be harmful.

The Curse of Brilliance, a thread:
Before we dive in, let’s look at another quote, commonly attributed to Picasso:

“When art critics get together they talk about Form & Structure & Meaning. When artists get together they talk about where you can buy cheap turpentine.”
Same thing here.

People hear this, get impressed, and conclude that, if you want to be great at something, you should ignore all the abstract crap and just focus on the tactics that The Great Ones employ.

I mean, who’s going to argue with Picasso, right?
Read 33 tweets
21 Sep
Since time immemorial, when a CEO asks a PM at Product Review, “what do you need to 10X users/revenue?”, “what will make you go faster?”, etc the PM steadfastly responds “We need [N] more engineers”. The Eng Mgr nods approvingly.

A story thread, with some hard truths to swallow:
“More engineers” will usually *not* solve your problems. Because the real problem is often a strategy problem, culture problem, interpersonal problem, trust problem, creativity problem, or market problem. More engineers *will* solve your “I don’t have enough engineers” problem.
When you finally manage to get more eng headcount, things will usually get worse before they get better. Management will now expect your team’s *immediate* output to be in proportion with this *new* headcount, not with your *current* staffing. Not fair, but that’s how it goes.
Read 21 tweets
11 Sep
My Slack policy:

Closely track 2-3 channels that matter most for my team’s priorities

Largely ignore the rest

Chime in as a last resort (often the team will resolve the issue on their own, without needing me to “provide value”)

Mobile / after hours notifications OFF

Contd.👇🏾
Respond to most DMs ~immediately (except those sent after hours)

Don't use the Slack native app on my laptop

Pin the Slack tab in Chrome (along with my standard 5-6 other pinned tabs)

Check the Slack app on the phone 2-3 times over the weekend (for any @ mentions or DMs)
Star the important channels

Set a Slack auto-responder when on vacation

Mute the Slack tab before starting "deep work"

Quickly redirect complex team discussions to a doc / email (Slack is often a great discussion starter, but also not the best discussion resolver)
Read 9 tweets

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