Learning to be a Product Manager | Day 3
Today was stressful. But the good news is, with some help from my mentor, I’ve solved a couple of tough problems and finally got out of the awkward dilemma. At the end of the day, I am glad to say I finally feel kinda relieved.
As I said before, cooperating with content team has always been hard and inefficient — things always go swirly and unexpected. Communication is key. Today I observed the whole process of interacting between my mentor and the content lead. There were fights, and even fire. It’s so hard to persuade someone irrational with given authority in the company, especially when that person’s opinion doesn’t make any point in terms of making a product for most of the time. But my mentor did it today, and she has made it many times before. I am so lucky to have her as my mentor, and I’ve learned so much from her since day one.
In the predictable future, I can foresee that cooperating with this team will be one of the hardest part of my job. Honestly, I can’t help but feel sad. However, I can’t be defeated by this obstacle. If my goal is to be a great PM and make good products, then I should never let it eat me alive. Instead, the more difficult it is, the more it is worth doing.
If it’s not painstaking, it’s not worth doing.
Today there was also a new requirement coming from the content team. But as it’s neither proposed during the feature review meeting or written in the PRD, so the developers refused to add this feature due to time frame. So I have to compromise and put if off till the next version.
Lesson Learned:
- Determine the scope of the situation/problem, and once things are kind of wandering across the border, stop it, and explain clearly.
- When I can’t reach agreement with other people, I should always be aware of their standpoints. Try to understand them, comfort them, and give convincing arguments. If it’s necessary, sometimes I have to take a step back, admit my mistakes or even show my inferiority so that the other party can feel a little better. Make sure you always get a conclusion.
- Be more prepared. Consider things from all angles and layers.
- Give clear, implementable directions to engineers. Always try not to add extra features after things are already settled.
Tired but fulfilled.
Live a small but difficult life. It’s lucky to have challenges every day, knowing that I’m making this world a little bit better.
