PDF Summary:Cracking the PM Career, by Jackie Bavaro and Gayle Laakmann McDowell

Mastering product management requires versatility. You must understand your users, analyze data, solve problems, design products, and run projects to deliver successful launches. In Cracking the PM Career, Jackie Bavaro and Gayle Laakmann McDowell provide an extensive overview for aspiring and experienced product managers (PMs).

This guide explores the core concepts of product management, from discovery through delivery. You'll learn techniques to build user empathy, work through tough decisions, prototype rapidly, and drive productive teams. Whether you're just starting out or aiming for senior roles, this book equips you with vital skills to thrive as a PM.

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Designing a Dashboard and Visualizing Data

The authors advise that every team needs a dashboard that's easily accessible to everyone involved with the product, not just the PM. They recommend including charts of the team's performance metrics, the measurements that lead up to those performance metrics, and some "sanity check" metrics that help the team understand how users are truly engaging with your product.

When creating your dashboard, keep these tips in consideration. Several handy ones that Bavaro and McDowell cite include showing the 7 day average of measures (for steadier lines when your product is inherently "spiky", such as an email inbox that only gets new usage when new emails arrive), factoring in seasonal trends (to quickly spot if an increase is likely due to alterations to the product or some external factor), and normalizing measures (to make the lines of the charts horizontal unless there's a real change in behavior).

Practical Tips

• Share your 7-day average achievements with a friend or accountability partner to stay motivated. Each week, send a brief update with your averages in key areas you're focusing on. This not only keeps you accountable but also encourages you to consistently track and review your data, reinforcing the habit of looking at averages rather than daily outliers.
• Engage in a seasonal swap with friends or community members to observe product usage trends. Organize a quarterly exchange of items like clothing, books, or tools. This social experiment can provide insights into how seasonal changes influence the demand for certain products and whether alterations in items affect their popularity.
• Apply a 'change threshold' to your budgeting routine to avoid overreacting to minor expenses. Set a specific percentage or dollar amount that an expense must exceed before you consider it significant. This helps maintain a 'horizontal line' in your financial tracking and ensures you only adjust your budget for meaningful changes.

Analytical Problem Solving

Bavaro and McDowell describe how analytically solving problems isn't about having sudden bursts of insight, and it's definitely not about forcing your team to do what you want merely because it's the right thing. Instead, they state that effective problem solving involves developing an organized method and using the right frameworks. This allows you to analyze complex, ambiguous problems in a way that improves solutions and makes your team trust you, because they start to see your decision-making process as transparent and deliberate instead of merely impulsive reactions. Making mistakes is acceptable—the most important thing here is to show that you're using different approaches to solve the problem. It often helps to visualize the problem with diagrams or tables to clarify the decision-making criteria and bring in other teammates and those involved to get a wider range of perspectives.

Structuring Approaches to Finding Solutions and Making Choices

The authors explain that there are two basic types of ambiguous problems: exploratory problems, where we have a question or problem but lack a clear sense of what the answer might look like, and decision-making problems, where we have options to evaluate but can't tell which is best.

For exploratory problems, the goal is usually to figure out what the answers might look like, which then transforms the exploratory problem into one that requires a decision. The authors suggest a brainstorming approach where you first generate various ways to divide the problem to get more breadth as you search for possible solutions, and then, within each of those sections, brainstorm the potential solutions. For example, if the issue you're addressing is "How can we improve revenue? ", you might start with high-level buckets like new vs. existing customers or revenue optimization for each user type.

When you’ve gathered a collection of potential solutions to evaluate, you face a decision to make. Such inquiries are inherently subjective because no single answer is objectively right—the solution you choose to go with will depend on what criteria you think are most important. The authors argue that the goal of applying structure is to simplify ambiguous problems to the important tradeoffs and to ensure that everyone agrees on which factors are the ones to prioritize.

To succeed with this, you should experiment with multiple frameworks and methods. 2-by-2 matrices are a particularly popular approach, as they help you organize the key decision-making criteria and solutions, and can often lead to discovering new solutions you may not have considered before. For instance, the 2-by-2 might assist you in discovering a method that satisfies two separate objectives. Another approach is designing a table that uses red, yellow, and green to highlight the advantages and disadvantages within various categories or features, and helps quickly spot problems like solutions that all conflict with the same other goal.

Another framework is what Mehrotra describes as "eigenquestions" because they're the queries whose solutions will answer other questions, too. In the role of product manager, you'll often have to weigh in on intricate issues, but Mehrotra understood that a sound decision often demands reformulating the question so that the answer also addresses the subsequent queries.

Practical Tips

• Develop a problem-solving toolkit by collecting methods and tools that align with the two types of problems. For exploratory problems, include creative thinking techniques like mind mapping or SCAMPER (Substitute, Combine, Adapt, Modify, Put to another use, Eliminate, Reverse). For decision-making problems, gather tools like decision matrices or pros-and-cons lists. Use this toolkit whenever you're faced with a problem to ensure you're using the most effective approach.
• Start a "What If" journal to explore potential answers to everyday problems. By writing down a daily "What If" question related to a problem you encounter, you can brainstorm various solutions without the pressure of finding the immediate right answer. For example, if you're struggling with time management, ask "What if I could control time?" and jot down all the ways you might tackle tasks differently.
• Use a randomization technique for inconsequential decisions to save mental energy. When faced with choices that have no significant long-term impact, like choosing a meal or a movie to watch, assign each option a number and use a random number generator to decide. This can help you avoid decision fatigue and reserve your cognitive resources for more critical decisions.
• Implement a "One Week Trial" for any new habit or change you're considering. Instead of committing to a long-term change right away, give yourself one week to try out the new habit or change while paying close attention to the trade-offs involved. This short-term experiment can reveal whether the benefits outweigh the costs and help you make a more informed decision about whether to continue.
• Use sticky notes to visually map out problem sections on a wall or board, allowing you to physically move and group ideas as you brainstorm. This tactile approach can help you see connections and patterns that might not be as obvious on a digital screen or in a linear list. For instance, if you're trying to improve your home's energy efficiency, you could have different sticky notes for insulation, heating, lighting, and appliances, then brainstorm and rearrange solutions within these categories.
• Implement a weekly "priority audit" with a friend or family member. Schedule a recurring meeting to discuss and review each other's top priorities for the week ahead. This creates a sense of accountability and provides an opportunity for constructive feedback, helping to ensure that you're both focusing on what's truly important and not getting sidetracked by less significant tasks.
• You can diversify your problem-solving approach by using a "method swap" with friends or colleagues. Partner up with someone from a different field or background and exchange typical methods you use to tackle challenges. For instance, if you're in marketing and your partner is in software development, you might try applying a software debugging approach to a marketing problem, like systematically testing different campaign elements to identify issues. Your partner, on the other hand, could use a creative brainstorming technique common in marketing to generate new coding solutions.
• Apply a 2-by-2 matrix to declutter your wardrobe by sorting clothes based on frequency of use and emotional attachment. One axis represents how often you wear the item (frequently or rarely), and the other represents your emotional attachment (high or low). This method aids in making objective decisions about what to keep or donate.
• Use color-coded sticky notes to organize your weekly meal plans, with different colors representing nutritional value, cost, prep time, or dietary restrictions. This visual aid can help you quickly assess your weekly food intake, making it easier to balance your diet and manage your grocery budget. For example, green notes could indicate meals rich in vegetables, red for high-cost items, and blue for quick-to-prepare dishes.
• Enhance your personal relationships by using eigenquestions to understand underlying issues. When facing a conflict, instead of asking "Why are we arguing about this specific event?" ask "What communication patterns are contributing to our conflicts?" By addressing the broader question, you may resolve not just the current argument but also improve your overall communication skills.
• Turn decision-making into a game by creating a "Question Reformulation Deck" of cards. Write different ways to rephrase a question on each card, shuffle the deck, and draw a card whenever you're faced with a decision. This random element adds fun and can help you see the problem from new angles.

Bug Triage

Bavaro and McDowell explain that PMs are the individuals who most understand customer needs, what kinds of bugs are particularly painful, and how quickly bugs affect various parts of the business. You often make decisions about whether a bug needs to be fixed, and if so, how quickly-a process called "triage." To guide this decision-making, they suggest evaluating bug reports based on the details of the bug, such as how much damage the bug can cause to users or the company and how many users are impacted.

Practical Tips

• Use a collaborative decision-making app with family or housemates to manage and prioritize household chores and responsibilities. Everyone can submit tasks that need attention, vote on their urgency and importance, and assign deadlines, mimicking the collaborative aspect of bug triage in software development.
• Implement a feedback loop with family or friends where you report 'bugs' in your personal routines or habits and ask for their assessment on the severity and suggestions for fixes. This could be a weekly discussion where you share what's not working well in your life, like procrastination or a cluttered home, and they help you triage these issues based on how much they affect your well-being.

Embracing Systems Thinking

The authors explain that a PM's responsibilities include their own individual scope, such as the features their team is working on, and ensuring that those features don't cause problems later on, or for other parts of the larger "system" that they fit into. This could look like ensuring your team's efforts won't conflict with another team's, or it could mean choosing implementation approaches that support future expansion. Systems thinking involves considering the enduring and global repercussions of your decisions.

Other Perspectives

• In some cases, conflicts between teams might be unavoidable due to competing priorities or resource constraints, and it may be more about managing these conflicts effectively rather than preventing them entirely.
• Prioritizing future expansion might delay the delivery of the current project, as additional planning and development are required to accommodate potential future scenarios.
• Focusing too much on long-term and global impacts might cause a PM to overlook or undervalue immediate and local concerns that are critical to the success of a project.

Abilities in Designing and Creating Products

Bavaro and McDowell describe how strong skills in design and product go far beyond simply knowing how to make a low-fidelity prototype quickly, or learning common usability guidelines (though those, undoubtedly, are vital, especially early in a PM's career). Rather, PMs with a strong intuition for product and design have an inherent focus on why a product or feature matters, and they continually loop back to the product's goals to make sure that they are driving towards valuable outcomes. These PMs are the ones that the designers, engineers, and other company members will reach out to. Over time, as you hone your product skills and broaden your horizons, you will face new challenges and opportunities around designing ethical products that don't cause harm, defining a nuanced quality bar, and advocating for the solutions that will best meet your customers' needs.

Discovering Products

The authors reiterate how important it is for a PM to resist the trap of jumping straight into execution before truly understanding the problem that needs to be solved. Effective product discovery not only ensures that you're developing something users actually want to use, but also that a solution actually exists within your organization’s time frame and resource constraints.

Their preferred method for uncovering product opportunities, which they describe in detail, is the GV Design Sprint, a structured, five-day method for discovery. The first day is spent aligning on the problem to solve, and the final day involves validating the design with real users, emphasizing how essential discovery is for a good product process.

Other Perspectives

• For small startups or teams with limited resources, prolonged discovery phases can be a luxury, and a lean approach that combines discovery with execution might be more practical.
• The effectiveness of product discovery can be highly dependent on the skills and experience of the team conducting it, which means that the process does not guarantee success by itself.
• The GV Design Sprint may not be the most cost-effective approach for all companies, especially smaller ones with limited resources.
• The GV Design Sprint may not be the most cost-effective approach for all companies, especially smaller ones with limited resources.
• In some cases, the problem may already be well-understood by the team, making a full day dedicated to problem alignment potentially redundant and a suboptimal use of time.
• The user group tested on the final day might not be representative of the entire target audience, potentially skewing the validation results.
• Overemphasis on discovery might lead to analysis paralysis, where the fear of not understanding every aspect of the problem prevents progress.

Balancing Enterprise and Customer Value in Decisions About Products

Bavaro and McDowell describe a common challenge for PMs: there can often be different types of goals that don't always align. Customer needs and desires are not always in sync with what will drive business success for the company building or selling the product.

Although you may be tempted to stick to a single black-and-white decision criterion, for example, designing products which are excellent for customers, in practice this neglects the needs of the business as well as the reality that sometimes building a feature that will only benefit a small number of users or have a small impact can be the "right" choice if those customers are really important to the company.

The PM's responsibility is to balance and integrate these disparate goals.

Other Perspectives

• In some industries, regulatory requirements or ethical considerations necessitate putting customer needs first, which can ultimately protect the business from legal issues or reputational damage, thereby aligning with business success.
• Designing products solely for customers can actually align with business needs if customer satisfaction leads to increased loyalty, word-of-mouth referrals, and long-term revenue growth.
• Building features for a small user group might divert resources from projects that could benefit a larger portion of the customer base, potentially leading to a suboptimal allocation of the company's resources.
• The responsibility for balancing goals might not rest solely on PMs; it could be a shared responsibility with other roles such as customer success teams, sales, marketing, and upper management.

Working With Designers

Bavaro and McDowell explain that the PM and designer roles often have much in common, and it's vital for these two roles to collaborate closely and provide mutual assistance. Designers are often the most valuable source of input for product managers since their expertise ties directly to user needs and product design. The authors warn that it is often counterproductive to dictate fixes instead of bringing the designer problems.

The best PMs treat designers (and engineers) as partners in collaboration to tackle problems and develop solutions, rather than tossing requirements their way and waiting for results. PMs work as a designer's main cross-functional partner and can really help in making sure that a designer's vision can be implemented with engineering constraints. When disagreements arise between the PM and design approach, it's crucial that the conversation remains one of supporting the designer's vision and finding an alternative solution that will work for everyone rather than devolving into unproductive clashes of pride.

Other Perspectives

• The training and background of PMs and designers can be quite different, with PMs possibly having a background in business or technology and designers often having formal education in design disciplines.
• While collaboration is important, it can sometimes lead to design by committee, where too many inputs dilute the clarity and effectiveness of the design.
• Designers' expertise is invaluable, but their input should be balanced with data-driven insights and user analytics to ensure that design decisions are not solely based on subjective opinions but are also supported by empirical evidence.
• Dictating fixes can sometimes be a part of an educational process, helping designers understand the broader context of business or technical requirements that they might not have considered.
• The concept of partnership implies a level of equality that might not always exist in terms of responsibility or accountability, which could affect the dynamics of project management.
• In agile or lean environments, the role of the PM might be less pronounced or even distributed among team members, making the idea of a single "main" partner less applicable.
• In some cases, the PM's involvement in aligning design with engineering constraints could lead to a compromise that neither satisfies the optimal user experience nor fully leverages the available engineering capabilities.
• In some cases, supporting the designer's vision without adequately challenging it could lead to groupthink or a lack of critical evaluation, which might not result in the best outcome for the project.

Designing Ethical Products

The authors remind readers that the digital and technical choices we make have a real-world impact, and that PMs should actively consider what that impact might look like. This is particularly crucial when creating products or designing functionality that targets vulnerable communities or could cause significant harm if misused.

They explain various unintended consequences of decisions made with good intentions, such as how algorithms on social media can push extremist content. If you fail to intentionally seek positive outcomes, it could shock you to find that your work ended up doing harm rather than good. They suggest working with a "harms framework" to identify potential pitfalls so you can mitigate them—don't just assume your products are safe or harmless.

Practical Tips

• Develop a habit of reading the terms and conditions of software and apps before using them to better understand their real-world implications. While it may seem tedious, gaining insight into what data is collected and how it's used can inform your decisions about which technologies to support or avoid. This practice can also lead to more informed discussions with peers, potentially influencing their digital choices as well.
• You can start by volunteering with organizations that serve vulnerable communities to gain firsthand insight into their needs and challenges. By working directly with these groups, you'll develop a deeper understanding of the nuances and complexities that must be considered when designing products for them. For example, if you're interested in creating educational tools, volunteer as a tutor in underprivileged schools to see what educational barriers students face.
• Use the "Three Degrees of Consequence" method before making decisions. Think through not just the immediate effects of your decision but also the second- and third-order consequences. For example, if you decide to work overtime, the first-degree consequence is more income, the second-degree might be less family time, and the third-degree could be increased stress or health issues.
• Create a habit of regularly checking the credibility of the content you consume by using fact-checking websites. Whenever you come across a sensational or extreme piece of content, take a moment to verify its accuracy before interacting with it. This practice not only helps you stay informed with accurate information but also prevents the spread of potentially harmful content.
• Develop a "Consequence Map" for decisions you face, which involves drawing out the potential positive and negative outcomes of your choices. This visual tool can help you think through the implications of your actions more thoroughly. When considering a new habit, like exercising, map out how it could lead to better health, more energy, and improved mood, as well as any potential downsides, to ensure you're intentionally seeking the best result.
• Engage with friends or family in discussions about the potential harms of popular products to spread awareness and encourage collective responsibility. During a casual meetup, initiate a conversation about a common product, like a social media app, and explore together what harms it might pose to different groups of people or society at large. This can lead to a deeper understanding of the products' impacts and inspire more mindful usage or consumer advocacy.
• Create a personal product audit routine by setting aside one day each month to review and research the safety of household items. Use this time to look up each product online, check for any safety recalls or warnings, and read through user reviews for any mention of adverse effects. This habit ensures you're regularly informed about the products you use daily.

Refining Standards of Quality

Product managers are responsible for defining success, and a significant element of this is explaining what "quality" means. Are you comfortable launching with some bugs, or would you prefer everything to be 100% polished and delighting every user?

At the start of your product management career, you may feel inclined to over-prioritize quality. It's preferable to ship something that's 90% good rather than waiting until it's 100% good and delivering delayed value to your customers. Conversely, don't use that logic as an excuse to cut corners where quality realmente matters. It’s a balance, and an important one.

As your career progresses, your role in upholding the team's quality standards expands in scope. Don't just accept the previously set quality standard; assess whether it actually matches the company's needs and the standards anticipated by users. The authors recommend closely monitoring user feedback and metrics. When the quality bar is too low, you'll see that reflected in things like low conversion rates, slow performance in the app or website, negative press, and social media posts complaining about it, as well as unhappy teammates who feel dissatisfied with the products they work on.

Practical Tips

• Create a feedback loop by sharing your work-in-progress with a small, trusted group before the official launch. If you're crafting handmade goods, give a few samples to friends or family members and ask for their honest opinions. This step allows you to identify any major issues that need addressing without delaying your overall progress.
• Implement a feedback loop with customers or users from day one. Create a simple survey or feedback form and distribute it to your initial users, asking specific questions about the product's usability, features, and any issues they encounter. Use this feedback to prioritize which aspects of the product need refinement, ensuring that quality improvements are aligned with user needs rather than assumptions.
• Set a "good enough" benchmark for your personal projects by deciding on a percentage of completion that you're comfortable with, such as 90%. For example, if you're painting a room, determine the critical tasks like applying two coats of paint and cleaning up drips, but don't stress about minor imperfections that only you might notice.
• Develop a habit of conducting "post-purchase reflections" to learn from your buying decisions. After each significant purchase, take a moment to reflect on the item's performance and your satisfaction level. Write down your thoughts and, over time, review these notes before future purchases to remind yourself of the value of investing in quality where it matters.
• Create a personal quality manifesto that outlines your commitment to excellence in your role. Write down what quality means to you, how you intend to achieve and maintain it, and the behaviors you'll adopt to ensure it's a priority. For example, you might decide that you'll always seek customer feedback on new features or that you'll dedicate time each week to review and refine your work processes.
• Implement a 'mystery shopper' program where friends or family use your service and provide honest, anonymous feedback. They should focus on assessing whether the experience they had matches what you claim to offer in terms of quality. This can uncover discrepancies between your perceived and actual service quality, and help you make necessary adjustments.
• Engage with users on social media platforms to receive real-time feedback and measure sentiment. Create a consistent schedule for posting on platforms where your users are most active, such as Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram. Use these posts to ask direct questions about users' experiences and encourage them to share their thoughts. Utilize social media analytics tools, many of which are built into these platforms, to gauge engagement levels and sentiment, helping you to quickly address any concerns and maintain quality standards.
• Develop a feedback loop with friends or colleagues where you regularly exchange work or ideas for constructive criticism. This could be as simple as sending a draft of a presentation to a friend for their thoughts, or asking a coworker to review the layout of a report you're compiling.

Methods for Managing and Designing Products

The authors present four frameworks to assist you in becoming a better product and design leader.

Wireframes, mockups, and procedures. Prototypes are powerful tools for validating an idea to see if it will function for actual users. The authors recommend using prototypes frequently and early on, and exploring not only software prototypes. They suggest testing with nearby users or utilizing a website to recruit relevant people. You can even test out the basic viability of an idea by changing something in your product's UI temporarily, observing user behavior, and then changing it back quickly.

The opportunity solution tree is a useful visualization that reminds PMs to consider many options. Instead of rushing to the most obvious or appealing solution, the opportunity solution tree branches out possibilities into alternative solutions.

Product teardowns are sessions where a team comes together to examine another product and notice the deliberate choices made to create the product and the user experience. While it might feel natural to concentrate on what's ineffective, the authors suggest that you'll find more value in teardowns if you focus more on the product's strengths, and use it for inspiration to improve your own product.

Brainstorming. Brainstorming helps you collect creative ideas by bringing together individuals with varying viewpoints. This is especially helpful for PMs, as you will eventually need to collaborate with people across the entire company to create successful products. The best brainstorms not only involve a varied group of people, they also put a light structure into the meeting that helps everyone be productive and contribute.

Other Perspectives

• There is a risk that users may focus on the unfinished design elements of a prototype rather than the core functionality, leading to feedback that is less about the idea's validity and more about its presentation.
• There may be practical challenges and limitations in recruiting the right participants through a website, such as ensuring their authenticity, commitment, and providing a representative sample of the target user base.
• Temporary changes in UI for testing purposes might not provide enough data to determine the viability of an idea, as users may need time to adapt to the change before their behavior reflects their true preferences.
• It could foster a false sense of thoroughness, where PMs believe they have considered all possible options when, in reality, they may have missed out on innovative or unconventional solutions not easily mapped on a tree.
• Product teardowns require a certain level of expertise to be effective; without a deep understanding of design principles and user experience, teams might misinterpret the reasons behind a product's strengths and make misguided decisions based on those misinterpretations.
• Brainstorming can be inefficient if the group size is too large, as not everyone will have the opportunity to contribute meaningfully within the time constraints of the session.
• In certain stages of product development, such as the initial ideation or highly technical phases, it may be more efficient to have a smaller, focused group of experts rather than a broad cross-company team.

Skills for Execution and Delivery

This section covers the skills that PMs need to launch high-quality products quickly, efficiently, and successfully.

Running Projects Effectively

Here you'll learn about project management—what a PM does during the "Develop" and "Deliver" stages of a product's lifecycle. The authors present a number of different approaches for organizing work (such as Agile, Kanban, and Scrum), and how to guide your team in making effective decisions and collaborating successfully. Good project management not only cuts down on wasted work, it also improves team morale, as teammates feel a sense of clarity and accomplishment.

Project Manager Duties: Agile and Scrum Methodologies

The authors explain how agile methodologies such as scrum and kanban are great tools for breaking down large releases into multiple, smaller phases and launches where the team’s engineers can focus their energy on the most important pieces, and the PM can start incorporating learnings early in the process. Scrum is a good place to start, as it introduces a number of helpful terms and processes, but the exact process a PM should use will vary depending on what the team requires.

Other Perspectives

• Agile methodologies may not always be suitable for all types of projects, especially those that require a high degree of certainty and predictability, such as projects in highly regulated industries.
• Incorporating learnings early is beneficial, but it can also lead to frequent changes in direction, which might cause confusion and reduce productivity if not managed carefully.
• Scrum requires a high level of discipline and buy-in from all team members, which can be challenging to achieve, thus undermining the effectiveness of its processes.

Developing a Product Backlog

An important piece of effective agile product development is the "product backlog"-essentially, the prioritized list of the work that you and your team want to do, often with cost estimates or other prioritization criteria that can guide how PMs order work, and how engineers pick up the most valuable work to start with.

Practical Tips

• Implement a personal retrospective session every week to refine your backlog. Set aside time each week to review what tasks were completed, what could have been done better, and what needs to change for the upcoming week. Use this reflection to reorder your backlog, add new tasks, or remove items that are no longer relevant. This continuous improvement cycle can help you become more efficient in managing your personal projects and goals.
• Develop a simple scoring system for daily decisions that involve time or money, such as cooking at home versus eating out. Assign points based on factors like cost, health benefits, and time saved. This way, you can make quick, informed choices that align with your priorities. If cooking scores higher on most days, you'll know to prioritize meal prep over dining out.
• Create a visual priority matrix on your wall to identify and tackle high-value tasks. Use sticky notes or a whiteboard to map out tasks in four quadrants labeled "Urgent and Important," "Important but Not Urgent," "Urgent but Not Important," and "Neither Urgent nor Important." Place your tasks in the appropriate quadrant to visually prioritize your work, focusing on the "Urgent and Important" tasks first.

Integrating Exploration and Design Work

A common issue with using Agile is determining how to incorporate design. Oftentimes, design work needs some time to get a jump on engineering work, so it's necessary to find opportunities for engineers to contribute while waiting for the designs.

Practical Tips

• You can optimize the waiting period by learning complementary skills that enhance your engineering knowledge. For instance, while waiting for design approvals, take an online course in project management or communication to better manage future projects and collaborate with your team.

Monitoring Project Development and Sharing Status Updates

Product managers have the duty to ensure their projects stay on track. The authors recommend having regular meetings with each team member to understand their progress. This is an opportunity for the product manager to offer problem-solving tactics, assistance with time management, and support with breaking large or complicated tasks into more manageable parts.

Outside of your feature team, you're also accountable for keeping the company's stakeholders informed on the project's progress. If you're effective, it builds trust and helps you get the support you need to achieve your goals.

Other Perspectives

• In certain cases, asynchronous communication tools can be more efficient and less intrusive for monitoring progress, allowing team members to update on their own schedule.
• Time management assistance from product managers could be perceived as micromanagement, potentially undermining a team member's autonomy and motivation.
• The frequency and depth of communication required can vary depending on the stakeholder's role and interest level, suggesting a one-size-fits-all approach may not be optimal.
• Stakeholders might become too involved in the day-to-day operations, leading to micromanagement and hindering the team's ability to work autonomously.

Adjusting Tactics and Pulling Levers

The most well-prepared plans may not proceed as anticipated. The authors describe the three levers that most product managers are familiar with: expanding the team by bringing on more engineers, pushing the deadline, or cutting scope.

They warn, however, that the initial two levers each carry risks. If you expand the team, there's often a ramp-up time before engineers are fully productive, and sometimes the extra engineers just add to the communication and coordination burden. Pushing the deadline often introduces additional, cascading delays that are difficult to control.

As a result, reducing scope is typically the favored strategy. The authors recommend beginning with the lowest-priority tasks and moving upward as the best method to cut scope. If they did this well in the project's early stages, this ought to be as straightforward as taking the lowest-priority items off the list, but sometimes it requires reconsidering how the scope should be defined.

Context

• Restructuring or changes in leadership within the organization can impact project goals and strategies.
• Extending deadlines can affect market opportunities, competitive positioning, and stakeholder expectations. It may also lead to increased costs and resource allocation issues.
• Adding new members can alter team chemistry and dynamics, potentially leading to conflicts or misunderstandings that need to be managed carefully.
• Rushed work to meet new deadlines can compromise quality, leading to more time spent on revisions and bug fixes later on.
• Limiting scope reduces the risk of project failure by concentrating efforts on core functionalities, minimizing the chances of overextension.
• Cutting lower-priority tasks usually has the least impact on stakeholders, as these tasks are often enhancements or non-critical features.
• Input from stakeholders, including customers and internal teams, might highlight new priorities or issues that were not initially considered, prompting a reassessment of the project scope.

Scoping Projects

The authors delve into the importance of scoping projects well to deliver value to clients as early as possible and to make optimal use of engineering time. If executed effectively, scoping can also decrease your risk as it provides more opportunities for you and your company to learn and iterate. That being said, no universal approach exists, and they warn that scoping should not be an excuse for shipping low-quality work or for cutting out design polish. PMs need to balance a number of considerations such as timelines, resources, and risk tolerance, against the desired customer and business outcomes and the cost of each task.

Applying Progressive Development

Bavaro and McDowell present the metaphor of "building a car" to explain how a successful product is more like a series of steps of increasing scope and value, than a sudden "grand finale" upon release. If you launch your product incrementally, it not only lets you course-correct early on to fix the problems that you didn't anticipate, but also means you will already be delivering value to customers, as opposed to only delivering value on that final launch day when you ship the "whole thing."

Context

• This approach involves releasing a product in stages, allowing for feedback and adjustments at each step. It contrasts with traditional methods where a product is developed in isolation and released all at once.
• Regular updates and improvements keep stakeholders engaged and informed, building trust and demonstrating progress.
• Achieving smaller, frequent milestones can boost team morale and motivation, as progress is visible and celebrated more regularly.
• Incremental delivery helps identify potential issues early in the development process, reducing the risk of major failures at the final launch. This proactive approach can save time and resources.

Utilizing Lean MVPs

A minimum viable offering (MVP) is a scaled down version of your product or feature, which you can create with minimal effort and then release to gather user insights. As the MVP idea has grown popular, the authors warn that they have also seen some spectacularly bad examples of MVPs in action, for example when teams cut out polish (which can result in a product that has good functionality but a first impression which is jarring to new users and hurts the likelihood of success) or when the team over-optimized the MVP for learning without a real plan for how to integrate the learnings into the company's broader product approach.

Context

• MVPs can take various forms, such as a simple landing page, a prototype, or even a manual service that simulates the product's functionality.
• The MVP approach supports agile development methodologies, enabling teams to adapt quickly to changes in user feedback or market conditions.
• The initial impression of a product can significantly impact how users perceive the brand as a whole. A lack of polish might suggest a lack of professionalism or attention to detail.
• MVPs should be part of an iterative process where each version builds on the last. Over-optimization for learning can disrupt this cycle, leading to stagnation rather than continuous improvement.

Balancing Timeliness and Excellence

Bavaro and McDowell remind us that launching a good enough product on time is preferable to waiting for a superior product that comes out too late. They encourage focusing on the cost-benefit and the consequences of each delay. The opportunity cost refers to what you miss out on when you make a choice, such as the lost user and business value your product could have been delivering when it's stuck in development.

Practical Tips

• Use the "minimum viable product" approach for your personal goals. Identify the most basic version of a goal you can achieve that still provides value. For instance, if you're learning a new language, aim to have a basic conversation rather than waiting until you're fluent to speak with someone. Start with simple greetings and common phrases, and use them in conversation as soon as possible.
• Create a "Delay Cost Calculator" spreadsheet to quantify the impact of procrastination. Input tasks you tend to put off, estimate the time delay, and assign a cost to each hour delayed based on your hourly wage or the value of your time. This visual representation can make the consequences of delay more tangible, encouraging timely action.

Releasing New Products

The authors discuss how successfully launching both products and functionalities is a key moment to showcase your execution skills and ability to guide a multi-functional team.

Planning Launches

They recommend using checklists to guarantee that nothing is overlooked and advise including topics such as the rollout plan, product testing, the GTM strategy, sales and support materials, and anything else that needs to be ready on launch day.

Other Perspectives

• Rigid adherence to checklists may stifle creativity and flexibility, which are often required to adapt to unforeseen challenges during a launch.
• In some cases, the focus on checking off items can overshadow the importance of quality and thoroughness in each task.

Ensuring Quality Before and During Launch

Bavaro and McDowell express how they have seen countless teams, even those with dedicated QA or test teams, overlook seemingly obvious issues that were only caught by a PM who took the time to play with the product "like a real user." They encourage testing a product from a beginner's mind, with all sorts of unexpected inputs and corner cases, covering every use case and flow that a real user might experience, and also using all of the devices and platforms your potential user base may use.

Practical Tips

• Rotate team members through different roles to gain fresh perspectives on projects. By having team members periodically switch roles or shadow colleagues in different positions, including QA, they can identify issues that dedicated testers might miss. For example, a developer might spend a day in the QA role to understand the testing process and potentially spot different kinds of problems.
• Swap products with a friend for a week to gain fresh perspectives. Use a product they are familiar with, and vice versa, then meet to discuss your experiences. This can reveal insights that you, as a PM, might overlook due to familiarity with your own product. If you're working on a fitness tracker, for example, using a different brand might show you new features or design elements that users find appealing or lacking in your product.
• Create a 'beginner's mind' journal where you document daily experiences as if you were encountering them for the first time. Write down your observations, questions, and feelings about routine tasks or interactions. This practice can help you see the ordinary with a sense of wonder and curiosity, which is at the heart of the beginner's mind.
• Use a decision-making flowchart for complex choices, like planning a vacation or making a big purchase. Draw out the steps you need to take, the questions you need to answer, and the options available at each stage. This visual representation can help you see the entire process and test different scenarios before making a decision, reducing the risk of overlooking critical factors.
• Volunteer your product for community events or local meetups to get real-world usage feedback. Look for events where people are likely to have the time and interest in trying out new things, such as tech meetups, community fairs, or school events, and observe how participants interact with your product on various devices.

Ways to Connect With Customers

The authors explain that launching a product goes beyond just shipping the code and putting a link on your website. You must determine how people will find out your product even exists, and then how you can convince them that your particular solution is superior to those already available. This combination of decisions (market research, marketing, pricing, promotion, competitive framework, distribution channel) is called "go-to-market" or GTM.

They suggest that the go-to-market strategy is something the PM will work on alongside a PM marketer, but it's often a key area where the PM adds value and influence. For example, it’s pointless to market a solution with a set of features it doesn't yet have, or launch something that's still in a beta, unsustainable state. The GTM process is inherently tied to the product, so the PM will want to stay closely involved even if someone else is leading.

Good go-to-market strategy starts with the positioning statement, often a single sentence that accurately describes to a consumer how your product is new and different so that they say "yes! That's exactly what I want." An illustration of this might be, "It's like Uber for socks."

Practical Tips

• Create a buzz with a pre-launch email campaign by gathering emails from potential customers and sending them teasers, updates, and exclusive previews. This builds anticipation and ensures you have an engaged audience before the product even hits the market. For example, if you're launching a new eco-friendly water bottle, you could send out emails detailing the design process, the impact on the environment, and a countdown to the launch date.
• Start a referral program that rewards current users for spreading the word about your product. Offer incentives such as discounts, freebies, or exclusive access to new features when they refer friends who make a purchase. This strategy turns your existing customer base into a marketing force, as people are more likely to trust recommendations from friends and family.
• Map out your product's journey by creating a visual go-to-market roadmap on a free online mind-mapping tool. Start with your product at the center and branch out to include key decisions like target audience, marketing channels, pricing strategy, and sales approach. This visual guide will help you see the interconnectedness of each decision and ensure you don't overlook critical steps.
• Engage with local small business owners or entrepreneurs to learn about their go-to-market challenges and successes. Offer to volunteer your time to help with a specific aspect of their product launch, such as customer feedback collection or social media promotion. This hands-on experience will provide you with a deeper understanding of the practical applications of go-to-market strategies and the opportunity to see the immediate impact of your efforts.
• Use social proof to validate your product's existing features instead of overpromising. Gather testimonials, case studies, and user-generated content from those who have used your product and benefited from its current features. Share these stories through your marketing channels to build trust and credibility. This approach highlights the value of your product as it is now, without the need to make false claims about potential features or capabilities.
• Craft your personal brand statement by identifying what makes you unique and how it benefits others. Start by listing your skills, passions, and experiences, then narrow down to what sets you apart from your peers. For example, if you're an accountant with a knack for simplifying complex financial concepts, your positioning statement could be, "I make finance easy for creatives, enabling them to focus on their art without money woes."
• Craft a "difference diary" for your product by jotting down daily observations of how it stands out from competitors, focusing on unique features, benefits, and customer experiences. This practice will help you identify and articulate the distinct aspects of your product more clearly to consumers. For example, if you sell handmade soaps, note the unique scents or skin benefits that aren't found in commercial brands.

Communicating Results

Product launches can be incredibly challenging and fraught with anxiety, but they're simultaneously a celebration for everyone taking part. Once you've hit the launch date, don't forget to communicate back to your organization and team how the launch went. This is especially important if your launch metrics don't meet expectations—your manager and company leaders may not understand those results unless you tell them.

Practical Tips

• Develop a "Product Launch Buddy System" with a peer who is also launching a product. Schedule regular check-ins to share experiences, offer support, and hold each other accountable for managing stress. This could involve weekly virtual meetings where you discuss progress, setbacks, and share relaxation techniques that have worked for you.
• Create a "Product Launch Memory Box" to capture the excitement of the moment. Gather items that represent the hard work and creativity that went into the product, such as early sketches, a list of milestones, or messages of encouragement from the team. After the launch, this box can serve as a tangible reminder of the journey and a morale booster for future projects.
• Organize a "Lunch and Learn" session where you present the launch results and encourage open discussion. This informal setting can foster a sense of community and provide an opportunity for team members to ask questions and provide feedback. You might prepare a short presentation and then open the floor for a Q&A session, making sure to provide lunch to create a relaxed atmosphere.
• Implement a "Three-Point Update" system in your regular communications, such as emails or team meetings, where you briefly cover: what the expected outcome was, what the actual result is, and what steps are being taken to address any discrepancies. This concise format ensures that you're consistently communicating about both successes and shortcomings in a digestible way.
• Start a peer-sharing initiative in your workplace where colleagues present their project results to each other in informal settings, like lunch-and-learns. This practice encourages the habit of articulating results and fosters a culture of transparency and learning. For instance, after a sales quarter, a sales manager could share strategies that led to a boost in sales, which could then be adopted by other departments.

Achieving Your Objectives

This part explores the challenges and opportunities of time management and setting priorities. The authors share how, at some point in every PM's career, being able to efficiently manage their time and work flow will become the biggest impediment to them expanding into a bigger role. They're supposed to oversee multiple projects or teams without sacrificing the quality of any of them. They present tactics both for managing your schedule and responsibilities and for supporting those on your team similarly.

Practical Tips

• Use a "time audit" app to track how you spend your workday for a week, then analyze the data to pinpoint time drains. Many apps are available that can run in the background of your computer or phone, categorizing each activity and providing insights into where your time goes. After a week, review the data to see where you might be losing time to unproductive tasks and adjust accordingly.
• Implement a 'project health check' system using simple traffic light statuses (green, yellow, red) to quickly communicate the state of each project. Update these statuses based on predefined criteria such as deadlines, budget, and team workload. For instance, you might decide that a project is 'green' if it's on schedule and under budget, 'yellow' if minor issues need attention, and 'red' if it's at risk of missing key objectives.
• Set up a "task batching" system using a digital calendar. Group similar tasks together and assign them to specific blocks of time throughout the week. For example, you might designate Monday mornings for administrative work and Thursday afternoons for creative projects. This approach can reduce the mental load of switching between different types of tasks and increase efficiency.
• Implement a "silent hour" policy during which all team members mute notifications and focus on their most important tasks without interruptions. Schedule this during a time when the team is less likely to need immediate communication, such as mid-morning or early afternoon. This helps manage time by reducing the frequency of distractions that can derail productivity.