steelaardvark

but I guess honestly you do learn something there as well- you learn that you need to find a new place to learn - because your product will never make it through this thresher

the meetings that upset me are the ones where you discover the executive probably shouldn't be an executive - those are hard - where you get insecurities boiling over, or you get to witness indecisiveness, or vapor lock, or you are on the receiving end of a lack of conviction

maybe I'm a glutton for punishment - as a PM if I have a meeting with an executive that doesnt go well

BUT

I learned how they think? what's important to them? got some strategic guidance? a bump steer?

thats a huge win

Years ago we used to call it "the motor" - we looked for PMs who had THE MOTOR

It wasn't easy to find - there are a lot of talented people on paper

But when you meet them and talk to them you realize - they wait

The PMs you want are the ones who say - the only tool I need is a phone

Friendly reminder - friends dont let friends deploy SAFe

i think MVP might be dead or at least dying

it has ironically become in many cases the thing it was supposed to fix - which is building too much before validating

too much emphasis on

‘product’ = code

and not enough on the idea that

‘product’ = solution to problems that later becomes code

what ails PM these days is that many PMs dont have a perspective on the $$$ - PMs have lost sight of one of the biggest parts of our job - maybe THE biggest: we are the keeper of the economic flame for our company

not sure where the idea came from that PMs are little agile soldiers - diligently creating tickets and crafting delicious user stories

somewhere along the way, last 10 years PMs started burrowing into the agile lifestyle - and when we did, we lost the lense of the business

if there is one TLA that is abused more than MVP it is OKR

ÿØÿà

it’s one of the things that ails large orgs - and it’s always surprising to me to see card-carrying startups accelerate this ON PURPOSE - “we need all the people in all the chairs”

roadmaps might be the single hardest yet single most important deliverable for PMs - if you get nothing else right - get this right

multiple contextual nested roadmaps are the winning formula - big animal pictures for the execs - detail for the teams - all aligned

its not a good thing when your team refers to the "source of truth" with air quotes

its fun to poke fun on social media - i'll admit i'm always down for a laugh - but in your own house, you need to be respectful of each other

no amount of better tooling / framework / process will fix this problem if you dont care enough to fix this problem

trust is always first

great teams share the obligations - they share the ups and the downs

it's the only thing that makes a difference - your team

if you are a PM and you harbor a deep animosity for your Dev counterparts? be very mindful

and vice versa

stop blaming each other

your PM team and Dev team lost faith in each other, and by transitive axiom maybe the company

you can always spot a product that is going to fail - the team has hardened into "PM DOES THE WHAT AND DEV DOES THE HOW" - its such a pernicious lie

the career experience that matters is not “startup” vs “big company” it is “winning team” vs “not winning team”