Principles of Product - Navigating Chaos with a Framework
As a product manager, I need to be operationally effective navigating through ambiguity and unknowns, so that I can build trust and thrive
Epic: Principles of Product
One challenge of product management is answering the question - what the hell does a PM actually do? The role can be entirely different company to company, or even team to team. On top of that, different skills are needed at different steps of the product development lifecycle. Part of the fun of the role - for me - is that each day brings something different.
Example of 2 wildly different product days:
😍 - I’m in discovery1! We have an incredible value prop for a new product, and today is about understanding how the user today flows through the use case we’re trying to address. I’ve got scheduled meeting with internal SMEs2 to define the step by step real world process so we can document, synthesize, and innovate against. This is fun, creative, and some of the more pleasurable type of work
😬 - A new release3 was deployed4 too prod, and with is the introduction of a new bug bug. The bug is blocking users from completing the a critical flow, so now the support lines are completely jammed with 100’s of anxious users. My slack is popping off, and now I must triage the users affected to do damage control, identify where the problem exists, get my dev lead in to evaluate whats actually going on, and we got to remove a dev from their current assigned tickets to fix. This is not a fun day.
When explaining the job of product to non-tech folk this presents a challenge. How do I describe to my mother-in-law what in the hell I actually do when I sit in her guest bedroom jumping into zoom meetings all day long?
The more accurate way to identify what product managers actually do it to think of the principles and skillset a PM must embody to succeed. Product done right is the implementation systemized framework towards getting any given task done. We systemize because we are responsible everything, all the time, across many different teams and individuals. By having a framework whose end results is concrete steps, we can scale ourselves, our time, and our products too infinity. (Thank you, internet)
If you end up booking a product consult with me, I almost guaranteed I will explain a framework apply to your issue at hand. My goal with this is to give you a tool that can be re-use it the next roadblock you hit. The issues aren’t predictable, but the frameworks are.
How to Apply a Product Framework IRL
A common situation to walk into as a PM happens like this - You get invited to a random call at an odd time. The second you hop on everyone is freaking out. You’re told “Nothing is working, we got a board meeting coming up, our users are unhappy and we’re screwed!”
I referenced a specific example of such a few weeks back on twitter.
In the above thread, another PM is stressing that a task force they lead is not trending the right direction for delivering something useful in the quarter. I’d categorize the situation as Looming deadline with unclear next steps of what has to happen to hit said. It’s a very niche scenario.
By categorizing, I’m up-leveling the situation to one where a specific product management skill:
Breaking down an ambiguous situation into components, then coming up with a plan to execute.
I’m literally ready to apply this skill on any call, with any group of stakeholders, for any given project, at any given moment. To be a black belt product manager, you are in the business of wrangling a heard of unruly meeting attendees into a definitive step by step plan.
This is a skill you begin to hone as a low on the totem pole as an IC5, but like how our products scale, we can scale this skill to an executive level where it can control the fate of hundreds of employees on the technical side of the business. I know because I saw it with my own eyes - during a chaotic regime change at a unicorn6 I formerly worked. An old boss of mine - now brown belt product executive7 to full control of an entire product org by applying it. (I share the specifics of this below in the paid portion of this post.)
Examples of the Framework Applied
To help model what I preach, I’ll first model the framework with the example of my tweet thread. After that, I’ll give an example of the model at scale, when an old boss of mine commandeered the entire product org, getting himself double promoted in the process.
For maximum affect, please re-read my 10 post tweet thread linked above now…
Done? Good, lets break it down with the Navigating Chaos Framework
1. Identify you are in a chaotic situation of stress and uncertainty.
In this situation, another director of PM move our normal 30 minute touch-base to the afternoon, and extended to an hour in the process (Tell #1).
Once in the meeting, immediately started talking about missing deadlines (Tell #2) and feeling “Out of Control” (Tell #3)
2. Pin down exactly where the pain lives. State it out-load to gain consensus that you’ve identified it successfully.
This step is where we take a page out of an A player Salesmen. For this example I actually took copied the approach the bowtiedsalesguy (If you don’t follow, do so this very moment - trust me).
The other PM was telling me they felt out of control. I simply took their own language and asked “Why do you feel out of control?”
The answer - There’s one MAJOR gap in what the cross-team task force is asking for where the resource who we knew could deliver it left the company for a FAANG8 role. We had others members on my team who maybe could do the work, but at the time of this call, we did not have that answer.
This was the one question that once answered, would guide all subsequent decisions of the task force.
PROGRAMMING BREAK
Got a product resume you need to up-level? I’ll review your resume, then talk tactics on a call.
Are you struggling with a product problem today? I’ll hop on a call and help you put forth the game plan to solve your issues.
At this point of the newsletter, I’m going to get into some more specific details from my career. As a cartoon belt with a bowtie, I gotta be careful with what let out where. As such, the rest of this article will be my paid subs only.
That will include:
The final two steps of me applying the Navigating Chaos Framework
Some big game corporate politicking, where an ex-boss of mine took advantage of massive company chaos to take full control of an entire technical org, getting double promoted to an executive role in the process
If you wanna read on, plus gain other product insider knowledge of how to both break in an thrive in product with Real World examples, all for the price of a Netflix subscription…
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