What happened after writing a recent Product Management IRL article? These insights are for paid subscribers to Product Management IRL.
This week’s backstory is about changes in collaboration:
What Prompted This Article?
For several weeks, I noticed increasing harshness from multiple directions in my product management job. Both public and private comments about:
going faster
making more sales
overexplaining in a presentation
don’t work on X, focus on Y
And the tone of these directions seemed angry. Plus, there was little information about the desired outcome.
At first, I thought this was something happening only in my organization.
Next, collaboration opportunities dropped:
meetings cancelled at the last minute
people too busy to meet
delayed responses to instant messages
people out of the office due to illness or vacation
I began to consider that other product managers are seeing the same thing.
A little research turned up Reddit product managers concerned about decision pivots and unreasonable demands.
The pressure is real for product managers as we go faster with process changes. I wrote about six things to do instead of passing on the tough talk:
I felt better after these reminders to myself. I also saw these actions as a way to continue being productive even though I expected the pressure to continue.
