Sometimes you receive the most valuable feedback when you lose a client.
Great features can be born from the most frustrating user experiences.
“The farther back you can look, the farther forward you are likely to see.”
-Winston Churchill
#Quotes
”The mind is not a vessel that needs filling but wood that needs igniting."
-Plutarch
#Quotes
“But we’ve always done it this way!”
Some of the most frightening words to hear… but so very ripe with opportunities.
Think about it like this:
Every time you deploy, you’re really shipping new/better/different outcomes.
Yes, yes, yes - you make wonderful hammers. (Congratulations!)
But how successful are your clients at actually building with them?
Your product’s success should really only be measured by your clients' successes.
A feature without a very clear “why” just shouldn’t exist.
Listen, listen, listen to your clients - but remember: they’re experts in their problems, not your solutions.
Your job is not to build what users ask for but to understand why they’re asking for it.
Don’t wait for the perfect moment to reach out - build your network consistently.
Don’t just ask for favors - add value whenever you can.
The relationships you cultivate today will shape your tomorrow.
“What we remember from childhood we remember forever - permanent ghosts, stamped, inked, imprinted, eternally seen.”
-Cynthia Ozick
#Quotes
”Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him."
-Aldous Huxley
#Quotes
Everyone expects you to be dependable.
Everyone expects you to know what you’re talking about.
Exceeding expectations is hard - and it gets harder to repeat as expectations rise over time.
But it is SUCH a powerful way to build a relationship with your customers.
Great product teams shape the entire culture of problem-solving, innovation, and learning within a company.
As I write this, it’s early Monday morning and - reminder - now is the best time to go ahead block some uninterrupted Focus Time on your calendar for the week ahead.
As a knowledge worker your thinking is your primary product. Tackling complex tasks effectively requires dedicated time and space.
Remember: organize your product around the market it serves and not around your internal hierarchies.
Said differently, roadmaps are not org-charts.
#productmanagement
“The great thing about fact-based decisions is that they can overrule the hierarchy.”
-Jeff Bezos
#Quotes
When working on a new roadmap, here are my 3 starter questions:
- Who’s the intended audience?
- What do I want them to take away from this?
- What would be the outcome if this was published on the Internet?
The needs of your audience and the realities of the market environment should shape the content.
“Ideas are easy. Implementation is hard.”
-Guy Kawasaki
#Quotes
Product-market fit is difficult to reach and it’s always in motion. ALWAYS.
From moment to moment, it’s contracting or expanding in response to changes within the broader market environment.
Pay very special attention to these changes.
The power of externalizing your thinking
As product managers - really as any sort of knowledge worker - we often find ourselves caught up in a swirling vortex of new market information, emerging strategies, client requests, and shifting priorities.
I’ve always found the simple habit of externalizing my thinking - whether through writing or in visual representations - to be an effective means of cutting through this noise.
So why should you bother to externalize your thoughts?
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Clarity: Externalizing our thinking forces us into organization and coherence. We often discover the gaps in our logic or unspoken assumptions as unexpected gaps and whitespace on the page.
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Communication: What do we do as product managers? We radiate information with the goal of creating a shared understanding. Externalized thinking becomes the seeds for other artifacts that can eventually be shared with team members, stakeholders, and clients.
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Iteration: Externalized thinking is by definition a tangible object. It can be interacted with, critiqued, and improved upon. Iteration is a fundamental driver of innovation.
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Memory Aid: Modern neuroscience informs us that our brains are quite fallible and most often concerned with conserving energy instead of retaining and processing information. Externalization serves as a physical extension of our memory. It allows us a mechanism to offload information and free up our limited cognitive resources.
Remember: your goal isn’t to create a masterpiece here.
The power lies in the process. By making your thinking tangible, you’re improving your own understanding AND creating the opportunity for collaboration, refinement, and innovation.