A Product Manager’s job is a complex one. Too many parallel initiatives to juggle, too many deadlines to meet, and too many stakeholders to manage. Feels like you can never do any real deep work. It’s not just PMs, startup founders and managers at a medium to a large company also find themselves in this spot.

Where Does the Day Go?

At any given time, PMs are often working on several initiatives in multiple stages of the product lifecycle. As illustrated in the chart below a typical day goes by dealing with stand-ups, monitoring metrics, roadmaps, processing customer feedback, etc.

Additionally, PMs work with multiple stakeholders in the company. From Engineering, Design, to Sales and Marketing. Every function has a dependency on a PM’s deliverables.

It seems like there is a never-ending list of serialized tasks that take up our entire calendars. Most efficient PMs work really hard to organize their tasks to ensure nothing slips through the cracks and end up having massive checklists like the one below.

To add insult to injury, some of the best advice in the world is to free up your calendar and do some deep work with reading and thinking… 🤦🏽‍♂️

Spin Em Up

We all can’t be one of the richest people in the world or even get to the place to delegate our way to have a completely free and open calendar. We need a different way to manage our tasks and stakeholders.

The mental model which has helped me through this is one of the spinning plates. Just like the performer below, who is able to load up one plate after the other on the sticks and keep them spinning. He keeps tending to these plates by speeding up the ones which slow down and carefully catching the ones that drop. He is able to switch back and forth seamlessly while having all the plates spinning at the same time.

Now think of each item or dependency on your list as a plate that needs to be spun up. Just like the performer above, you have to keep these tasks going simultaneously and focus on them when they need attention. Always be mindful before picking up tasks that there is an upper limit here. Even the performer above won’t be able to manage too many plates.

Large Plates vs. Small Plates

Unlike the performer, as PMs, we can size our plates. This way we know which tasks are more important than others. Larger plates will need more focus and frankly, these are delicate. Smaller ones are easier and much more resilient. The key is to know which is which. For example:

Large Plates Small Plates

Don’t get me wrong. Small plates don’t mean you don’t focus on them. It’s just that they aren’t fragile and don’t need too much babysitting.

Allocate time on your calendar for the larger items. Go ahead and block out slots on your calendar for these. This is where you need to bring your A-game. Once you get better at this, I will strongly recommend to treat your “deep work” as a large plate too and allocate time for that.

Frankly, our calendar doesn’t belong to us and anyone can book time without even talking to us. Holding time on the calendar for our large tasks is critical. Once you have time-locked for larger items, you can then find times for the smaller ones. This is analogous to my rock-pebble-sand model for delivery planning, which I will save for another post. Here is another framework for thinking about tasks, which could help you categorize/plan better.

Some Fast and Some Slow

In addition to being aware of the size of the task, you have to know the cadence each task needs. Not all tasks are equal nor need to be managed at the same speed. The key advantage we as PMs have over the performer is that some plates can afford to run slower than others. Intentionally slow down on tasks that don’t need frequent attention.

One key thing to keep in mind is stakeholders or team members who depend on you. Spin the plate enough to get them unblocked, such that you are free to go back to other important plates.

Conclusion

We all as PMs have way more than our calendar can handle and it feels like all of it must be done all the time with the same attention. We cannot operate like that and clearly, we won’t be effective. Also trying to finish everything at all times is a sure shot recipe for burnout.

So allocate time and energy wisely. Pick the right tasks and spin them up with the velocity required. One more thing, do find time for some deep work!

Originally published at http://abhishek.tiwari.com on August 1, 2020.

Inside-Out

In most businesses, this looks something like “ Check out what this cool technology built by someone in Eng. Let’s make this a product/feature”. Or here is another version: “ We already have technology X, why don’t we build product Y and create a new revenue stream “. Several months are spent building the next best thing only to meet with a tepid response from the market. Even if the business is able to sell it to a customer, retaining them is next to impossible.

It’s like the illustration below where the organizational journey is left to right:

Yes, these are all first-hand examples I have faced in my career and often made these mistakes myself. This approach leads so much wasted software and resources. This is also the starting point of “Build it and they will come” thinking. That topic requires another post by itself.

It doesn’t matter to the customer how cool the technology is or how it can be efficiently reused to deploy a new product. It only matters if it actually solves the problem and enables customers to perform the job they want to do. That too if the job/problem is an important one.

You can change everything but not The Market

Steve Jobs famously spoke about it in this video:

This is absolutely critical to internalize. We as product people or anyone in the technology field can change almost change anything in their company.

• Underlying technology
• Hiring the right people
• Having the perfect roadmap
• Choosing the appropriate distribution strategy
• Making smart partnerships
• Making key acquisitions
• Etc. etc. etc.

However, the one thing you and no one can change is The Market. That remains the immovable object in all this. This is where >90% of ideas die…

Outside-In

This is why it is really important to start with the Market first and mold everything to work for the customer and the market. This is illustrated below where the journey is right to left.

This begins by understanding the market. What does it mean by “Understanding the market”? Setting aside the obvious TAM/SAM/SOM definitions of the market, for a good product strategy it’s important to accomplish the following:

• Identify different segments of the market. You can do this based on size or their maturity level
• Identify customer persona. Ideally broken down for the segments you created in the market
• Conduct research into understanding their “Job to be Done”, which will yield their core needs and pain points
• Zero in on the segment you can uniquely solve for
• Conduct deep product discovery

Only when these steps are complete you can be somewhat sure that you are building for the market. Even then I will push to continue building and iterating the product with the customers. Now each of the aforementioned bullets deems their own blog post. Will get to them over time. However, as you can see, the whole process starts with the customer, stays centered around them, and ensures that we are building for their core needs & pain points.

Conclusion

In my experience, this concept is largely understood logically but it hasn’t fully seeped in. One big reason for this is that most Product and Tech folks are natural problem solvers. They are trained most of their lives to solve problems. It’s very much second nature to jump into solving when faced with a problem. This is what leads to the Inside-Out thought process.

What we need is to peel ourselves outside of that mold and consciously focus just on the customer and their problems. It is important to fall in love with the problem first than the solution. Solutions change and evolve over time, but the core problem remains and that is what customers actually want solved. This is very much at the heart of Paul Graham’s and YC’s mantra:

Originally published at http://abhishek.tiwari.com on July 12, 2020.

Obviously there are a lot of great answers to this question. However, this got me thinking about the question itself. The question is not about what a PM delivers or works on. It is about what they “do”? In other words, the question is from the perspective of an outsider or a stakeholder in an organization.

So I wanted to focus on the impact of a good PM can have in the organization as a way to answer this question. Hence, I am purposely not discussing product discovery, roadmaps, stories, etc. This is something I discuss with my team frequently. I like having these in the back of their mind whenever taking any action or decision. I break these down into five parts.

Product Strategy

Product strategy simply put, is the way to achieve the company vision. It crafts the steps to be taken across various initiatives which will drive the entire organization closer to the end goal.

Product Managers are not only responsible for defining this strategy, but much more importantly are responsible for driving it through the rest of the organization. It’s the PM who needs to ensure that we are looking at each problem, each decision, and each initiative through this lens.

If performed well teams work on the right initiatives and overall delivery is on the right outcomes which will deliver value to the customers.

Balancing Between the Tactical and the Strategic

Even with a strategy in mind, often PMs have to make decisions about short term initiatives that may not fully align with long term vision. It isn’t fully clear that this outcome will eventually get the organization closer to the end goal or not. Typical examples include specific customer requests, underlying technology change, internal tools, etc.

Good product managers help bridge this gap for the team. They help all the stakeholders understand as to why a certain initiative matters in the long run. Moreover, they connect the dots between the short term tactical item to the long term strategic result.

This ability also helps them to make decisions on these short term initiatives and ensure that they are not sacrificing the long term for the short.

Curator not Creator

Often PMs are seen as a source of product ideas. This could not be furthest from the truth. True innovation requires an environment where all voices are heard and contribute towards the success of the product and thus the business.

In order to foster such an environment, the good PMs encourage and cull the best ideas from the organization. Using every opportunity they have, PMs source deep insights and ideas from every part of the organization. This need not be limited to just the customer-facing teams. An environment (in addition to tools) needs to be created where anyone can contribute.

PMs then use these insights to mold, massage and craft (aka curate) the most optimal roadmap for the product at the given moment.

Enabler for the Entire Organization

This goes hand in hand with the point above. Creating an innovative and collaborative environment requires a strong team in every possible function. While many functions can operate in vertical silos and can make independent decisions, PMs cannot operate in that fashion.

Look at it another way. If a sales rep doesn’t meet the quota, the impact is felt within the sales team, and if a developer ships buggy code, it’s the eng team who have to stay late and fix the problems. Sure the business does feel the impact but the other vertical teams don’t. However, in each of these scenarios, PMs do feel the impact. No matter where the problem is in the organization, it impacts the performance of the PMs product.

So to be successful, PMs operate horizontally and realize the impact they have on their stakeholders and vice versa. They know and believe this in their hearts to have the intense empathy and ability to have a positive impact. At every step, they strive to enable their stakeholders to be successful at their job. They truly serve as a trusty ally at all times.

Glue Between Functions

Finally building on point of PMs operating vertically, they are also in a unique position to connect various orgs. In most cases, changes in one org do end up impacting another org in an indirect form.

Good PMs are cognizant of this and actively act as a glue between organizations to minimize things falling through the cracks. This is very powerful in complex organizations where a small change can severely impact operations or support processes downstream.

Conclusion

I purposely focussed on Outcomes versus Outputs for this answer. When the aforementioned outcomes are felt an organization truly recognizes the value of PMs in their teams.

If you are an aspiring PM and have a true impact in your company factor these in your thought framework and be mindful in every decision you make.

Originally published at http://abhishek.tiwari.com on July 6, 2020.

For years I have been openly bashing the notion of phablets. I find it crazy that anyone could hold that big a device up to their ears and have a conversation. It’s like people are buying phones like they buy TVs…

After lot of conversations and heated debates with friends on social media, I decided to delve in and try it for myself. I needed the insider view on the subject.

So finally bought the iPhone 6S Plus late last year. I did that via the new Apple iPhone upgrade program. That way I could switch within a year if I wanted. Frankly, this is an experiment with this form factor and the rest of the post is about my assessment so far after approximately 4 months of use.

One Handed Use

This was downright the hardest thing to overcome for me. I had gotten very efficient using the 5S with one hand. Not only figuring quick access to apps but response to frequent actions had become lightening fast. However not so with the 6S Plus. What made it harder was having a case. No matter what case I tried, it increased the width of the phone and made it even harder for a one handed use. I finally had to give up on all the cases and use it bare. So far I have been able to get one handed usage working with some quick actions available from the bottom slide out menu.

I also had to rearrange the app icons (see below) to get the most frequent ones on the bottom of the phone, which I am guessing most people do.

Reading

This one has received mixed reaction from me. For most blogs, Medium and news, reading during the day works great. The large screen makes it incredibly easy to read. Very much like a kindle or an iPad. The only improvement required is on the part of content publishers. They really need to think about making experiences as immersive and easy as Medium or Facebook instant articles.

However night time reading while lying in bed doesn’t work so well. This puts me back on the one handed use case, where I find that the phone keeps falling out of the hand. Using both hands here is not an option. Interestingly enough, I haven’t had this issue with an iPad mini. So it has to be something around the weight/dimension of the 6S Plus and how it sits in my hand.

Watching Videos

This by far is the best thing on such large devices. The screen allows for far better experiences which was expected. However the unexpected piece is the ability to have better control on the videos. Forwarding and rewinding content is far easier as the large screen allows better control.

Battery Life

Now as you might know, I don’t measure such things with specs. I measure them with impact to user behaviors. I used to charge my 5S every night when going to bed and have the same need with my 6S Plus. Now this might be specific to this device as I’ve heard it has a slightly smaller battery size compared to the predecessor. However until this changes for me, like charging once in 2 days, I won’t be impressed.

Muscle Memory

For the first few weeks I noticed that my hand and body had trouble dealing with a bigger device. Like new pair of shoes it took about a week to get fully adjusted. Now over the past 3 months my body has gotten used to the bigger device and I notice myself doing new things to adjust for the bigger form factor.

For instance to facilitate one handed use, I now use the support of my chest or abdomen to adjust the position of the phone in my hand. Be it to slide the device up or down in my hand or to be able to access the corner diagonally opposite to my thumb. I find it very interesting that an involuntary behavior was created through repeated use of the device.

What I Wish For

Eventually we all will have foldable, projectable or hologram-able screens. However until then I would like to see couple things happen to keep the screen size to content ratio manageable.

1. Improved screen technology: Just as Retina changed the experience tremendously. I’d like to see physical improvements which could deliver more in the smaller form factor
2. Better content rendering: Frankly mobile web still sucks. Also many content apps still haven’t made it immensely easy to read and consume content (looking at you FlipBoard). Get rid of the banner ads, silly animations etc and just give access to pure content.

Conclusion

So to wrap up, I am still not convinced that big screen is the better way to go. As of now the cons outweigh the pros (at least for me). On day-to-day use, it’s still a bit of effort to work with this form factor. Now that I don’t have a case anymore, I have the additional burden to ensure that I don’t drop it by mistake :-).

I still have most of this year for this experiment to conclude. I’ll post back as and when I learn more and get used to the device.

What bothers me is that I may not be able to make the journey backwards in screen size. I’d love to hear from anyone who has done that. Hit the Heart button if you agree or send it to a friend who may want to debate me on the subject ;-)

Image credit: Apple and htxt.co.za

In this Post PC world, we act and think differently. PCs and Laptops were primarily purchased for work (or gaming). The decision to purchase a computer was always based on how powerful and effective it was to support your work/gaming needs.

Post PC devices such as Smartphones and Tablets serve us differently. They make us better human beings by empowering us to efficiently fulfill our daily needs. Looking up directions, communicating with people, finding restaurants, reading the news, listening to music etc. In this world, one cannot simply look at the specs and make the decision.

The ecosystem is much more important. The ecosystem of apps, networks and content makes all the difference. People don’t buy these devices simply because they can use them with their gloves on or they can share photos by touching their phones. They make their decision with the broader picture in mind.

This is why Apple is so far ahead in the game. They spent the time building the ecosystem right. They got partners involved early. Now they have all the apps, network support, all the content etc. So even if you feel that they haven’t innovated (which, I would argue), they can afford to do so. This is because most people like being in that ecosystem as they can achieve a lot more in their daily lives with their devices.

So Samsung and Nokia aren’t really helping themselves with these ads. They make them sound defensive and frankly somewhat stupid. Instead, focus on building great ecosystem with partners along with building great devices. Users will follow…

Images via Ubergizmo and Gizmodo

Originally posted on Sept 23rd 2012