Prediscovery (Leading Initiatives, part 1)
Practical Guide
Introduction
As product managers, we are often obsessed with the technical aspect of our products, the behaviour of our users or the requirements of our clients. While leading big cross-organisation initiatives, we tend to underestimate another aspect of the product management job and that is how we create a relationship with our peers. We take our relationships with peers for granted: it is everyone’s job to cooperate with me, you, and us — we are professionals, right?
Relations with your peers have to be built as every human interaction, therefore from scratch, and for the initiative owner who is moving across the company, it is the most difficult task on his list.
The poorly led initiative may discourage your peers from exploring possible options and generally may cause you won’t extract the best from the best talents around you. Additionally, having onboarded/engaged PMs you have a better chance to explore opportunities and this way you will not just mechanically deliver initiative output (as expected at the beginning), but you may focus on initiative outcomes and enhance and enrich your initiative with new unexpected ideas.
What is the initiative?
Let’s set the vocabulary for this playground. What am I talking about when I speak about the initiative?
If a company product is a platform then the initiative is a cross-platform change that touches several products of the platform and requires the involvement of several teams across the company.
Prediscovery
Mapping the Uncharted Territory: Collecting Information & Information Categorization
Prediscovery is the most important time for the initiative. You start prediscovery with the blank page. As the explorer, you walk into uncharted territory, but at the very end of prediscovery you end up with a map in your hands. How to get the map? As the initiative owner, you must create a coalition of missionaries who will drive and fuel the initiative together with you to the very end of the initiative. The whole success of the initiative depends on the ability to create such a coalition.
The coalition of missionaries
I can’t emphasize well enough how important is the following sentence, so if you should learn just one thing from this text, it should be this: As a single initiative owner, you are not able to drive and execute the initiative just by yourself. Your main task is to create a coalition of missionaries.
When I use the term “missionaries” I mean Marty Cagan’s distinction between “mercenaries” and “missionaries”. The coalition of missionaries in minimum size consists of two main elements: key players and initiative tech lead.
Key Players
I found it useful to differentiate involved teams into three groups: key players, enablers and supporters.
There is no need to demand and require the same engagement from all teams and product managers in the initiative.
As an initiative owner, you should first focus on your key players, who will become the cornerstone of your coalition of initiative missionaries.
I would like to touch on the topic of outputs (actions) vs outcomes (desired value). Key players’ ideas should be at the centre of the initiative if you want to achieve the outcome, not the output. Focusing on initiative outcomes you take into consideration all ideas which were not expected at the roots of the initiative; you provide room for the ideas of key players and provide room for their self-realization.
When you narrow down your initiative to the output, to discussion on features, you lose an occasion to enrich your products and room for collaboration with key players.
For me, key players are the primary target to ensure they understand what the initiative is about and what their role in the initiative is. It requires extra effort from you to ensure the initiative change is adopted by your key players. Regular 1:1 meetings with each product manager should address their questions, worries and doubts. Listening is your primary tool in these meetings, I will elaborate on it later.
Initiative Technical Lead
In the hype of product management icons like Steve Jobs or Elon Musk, you can easily fall into the illusion that you have to invent and manage everything around the product.
In my opinion, collaboration with the initiative technical lead is crucial for initiative success. The initiative takes a couple of months or even more than a year. Of course, you create business and architecture strategies as well as communication together. You build the list of possible technical directions together. But more importantly, you provide support to each other. Having a buddy around in moments of frustration is priceless.
How to Build the Coalition of Missionaries?
When you start an initiative you may struggle with how to approach the initiative. Is it more project or product? Answering this question will not help you with creating a coalition of missionaries. The simple truth is that as a product manager you have to step into change management which provides further guidance.
Change management and ADKAR model
The best thing you can do is to wear the hat of the change manager. You became the foremost change manager and the most important task for you is to explain why the change happens and what is the role in it for all participants.
The Prosci ADKAR model is an individual change framework created by Jeff Hiatt. ADKAR is an acronym that represents the five building blocks of successful change for an individual:
- Awareness of the need for change
- Desire to participate and support in the change
- Knowledge of what to do during and after the change
- Ability to realize or implement the change as required
- Reinforcement to ensure the results of a change continue
Usually in change management, all effort is focused on the main task: how to hand over “knowledge” which is the core and essence of what we want to achieve via change management. I found the ADKAR model super useful when it explains that you cannot succeed in your endeavour until you receive individual acceptance on the first two levels, awareness and desire. Companies are still mindful of the first one (awareness of the need for change) by communicating official statements, nevertheless, they are lazy to handle communication of desire and answer the question: What’s in it for me?
Awareness and Desire
According to the ADKAR model, your peers must be not only aware of the change but they have to desire the change.
Desire represents the willingness to support and engage in a change. Desire is ultimately about personal choice, influenced by the nature of the change, by an individual’s situation, as well as by intrinsic motivators that are unique to each person.
Identifying intrinsic motivators on a very deep personal level. What does it mean? We examine the initiative’s impact on the particular digital sub-product and identify opportunities and pitfalls. We do not just implement expected initiative outcomes, but rather listen to product domain experts about what else we should take into consideration. We collect PM’s ideas along the way. It motivates people, they feel heard: they find the answer to the question: What’s in it for me? Your peers enrich initiative through unexpected ideas, they are becoming believers and fuel the initiative with new energy. The initiative is not only on your shoulders anymore.
What’s In It For Me?
You may wonder: “Should I become a therapist who helps others to find the right answers on a very deep personal level?” You may protest: “I am at work, I am professional, and when creating the initiative group I require the same professional approach from all my peers ”. Well, nobody expects that one should become a therapist, but the fact is that the artificial division of “professional” vs “private” does not fit into modern leadership.
Kim Scott rejects the concept of “professionals” deprived of the human, private and inner side of the personality. Bringing your whole self to work allows you to understand what motivates each person and enables you to set a trusting relationship which is the engine of all movement towards goals (p. 8).
Being at work does NOT mean that you may skip the process of creating human interaction and empathy. As two fellows, you grab a mug of tea or coffee and speak about the last football match, your vacation or your mountain trip last weekend. This safe mixture of private and work stuff is the glue of the trusting relationship which fuels the coalition of missionaries.
Listening
As an initiative owner, you may tend to constantly talk about your needs. I found it useful to allow me to speak to my partner about his/her history as a product manager first, about their product, the past and history, their plans for the future, their roadmaps, and most important — challenges and opportunities (not only problems). And so, step by step we gather appearing occasions for my partner’s product and initiative in general.
One of my favourite conversation and listening technique is paraphrasing. I ask for permission to repeat what I heard in my own words. It is also the perfect occasion for my partner to validate my understanding, correct me and provide additional information.
Sometimes I “forget” to listen because my thoughts are wandering somewhere else: I am thinking about the next meeting, the message on Slack or my older son’s exam at school. Believe me, everyone can tell when you’re not focused and you are not listing carefully. Your face shows more than you could expect. When you spot you are not focused, just admit it, apologize and ask your partner to repeat a few sentences back. Remember — showing your vulnerability is great means to build trust.
Tools and Books
Kim Scott: Radical Candor. Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity
- Scott rejects the concept of “professionals” deprived of the human, private and inner side of the personality
- Bringing your whole self to work allows you to understand what motivates each person and enables you to set a trusting relationship which is the engine of all movement towards goals (p. 8)
Roman Pichler: How to Lead in Product Management: Practices to Align Stakeholders, Guide Development Teams, and Create Value Together
- Listening techniques (P. 64) (Listen Inwardly, Listen with Open mind)
- Conversation techniques (p. 83) (Paraphrase, Mirror, Clarify)
Jake Knapp with John Zeratsky & Braden Kowitz: Sprint. How to Solve Big Problems and Test New Ideas in Just Five Days
Ask open-ended questions p.214
- Ask Who/What/Where/When/Why/How?
Don’t ask “yes/no” or multiple choice
- Don’t ask “Would you…? “Do you…?” “Is it….?”
Sum up: Prediscovery
- Reflect on your personal situation: what value should I deliver to my peers?
- Map uncharted territory: provide the context
- Identify Key Players: establish a coalition of missionaries
- Tech lead: moments of frustration will come, provide support to each other
- Change management: intrinsic motivators and opportunities
