Product Management is like the weather in Vancouver

My first year as a Product Manager

As my first year as a Product Manager came to a close, I found myself flat on my face trampled by a herd of wildebeests.

Still standing

Let’s rewind a year. It’s my first day at a new job, in a new company, in a new industry, and my very first day as a Product Manager. To say I was experiencing imposter syndrome is well… let’s just say I felt like I was showing up at the Olympics to do an inward 4.5 tuck off the 10-meter platform (that’s really hard; I googled it) when all you’ve done previously is jumped off feet first, toes pointed, nose plugged, and prayed you stayed straight as you fell toward a certain slap.

As terrified as I was, I had a wee bit of confidence. I had been entirely transparent throughout the interview process. So, at the very least, I knew my manager knew what he was getting into; he had a Product Management enthusiast, with no direct experience on his hands.

One foot after the other

With so much “news” and “firsts,” at the beginning, everything I did was progress.

• Learn my colleagues’ names, progress.
• Learn to navigate our application, progress.
• Learn to plan a sprint, progress.
• Learn to tag features for data analysis, progress.
• Learn who key stakeholders and deciders are, progress.
• Learn to speak (listen) to customers about their problems, progress.

All this progress also meant room (more like caverns) for growth anywhere and everywhere I looked, and most of the time, this was daunting. But the observable progress helped me maintain faith that “I can do this!”

And then something shifted. That steep learning curve plateaued and, while the cavernous spaces for growth remained, the progress slowed to a glacial pace. I froze. I knew enough now that I could fill a day with something that looked a little bit what I imagined being a Product Manager would look like; attend stand up, jam with the product team, look into some user patterns on Pendo, write some stories, refine some stories with the engineers… But it all felt very “keep the lights on” and I became a Product Manager (and was hired) to add value and make a difference! This was not enough.

As I stood at the start of my plateau and looked out at endless open space, the product team was preparing for a new quarter and discussing potential roadmap initiatives with teams across the company. Having a product team was new to the start-up and the process of establishing the roadmap, like me, was very much a work in progress. The product team (my manager plus the other product manager on the team) discussed how we’d like to approach these roadmap discussions.

Writing Product Briefs for each potential initiative was mentioned, and I recall my teammate expressing less than enthusiasm toward them before we moved on to the next topic — fortunately for me. In addition to genuinely enjoying writing, I had read quite a bit on Product Briefs as I ramped myself up to enter the world of Product Management, and putting a business case down on paper was not new to me. This was an opportunity.

Still feeling imposter-y, I didn’t feel confident enough to declare my enthusiasm for Product Briefs in the group setting, but the next time I spoke with my manager one on one, I eagerly informed him of my desire to give it a go; to which I received a “Go for it!”

So I went for it

Not only did Product Briefs take advantage of my strengths, but they also offered me a focused way to dig deeper into some of our customer’s problems. Instead of looking at wide-open spaces and endless opportunities, I now had a direction. Writing my first brief was awesome.

1. I got to take advantage of skills I’ve built up in my past lives. With an undergrad in Biology and recently completing a Thesis for my MBA, research and data analysis are muscles I have had to flex just a few times. It was clear how I could apply my existing skills to this task. The application was a little bit different, but the actions were familiar. This helped me find my confidence again.
2. It gave me a specific reason to reach out to Subject Matter Experts (SME). All my new colleagues had been more than welcoming and provided open invitations for guidance and help. But without specific questions, I was finding reaching out to gain domain knowledge challenging. Writing a Product Brief gave me an excuse to reach out and a starting point for the conversation. And if the conversations strayed off topic, I could bring us back in scope while making notes for future topics to reach out about.
3. I began building relationships. The conversations also opened the door for me to establish rapport with the SMEs. This presented some of my first opportunities to meet one on one with the SMEs I connected with. The meetings we had gave us the chance to simply chit-chat before diving into the topic at hand. I got to know the people I was working with and they got a glimpse into who I am.

The brief I wrote on the other hand… Well, it was a good first try. We have iterated on that first brief and the template I set out as a first attempt at least 5 or 6 times since then. You can tell my initial attempt and our current template are both Product Briefs because they both say Product Brief in the title.

Even though the brief wasn’t exactly what we were looking for, it got the ball rolling for creating artifacts that we could reference and was the starting point for the many conversations that, eventually, got us to our now standard Product Brief template. Not to mention, the process the first Product Brief took me through, built up my first solid footing in understanding some of our customers’ problems.

Oh shit, I know some things

After writing my first few Product Briefs, Product Management got real. Fast. The problem with doing research and building relationships was, all of a sudden I had answers to questions and insights on initiatives that no one else did. People started to rely on me. I had become useful.

That calm I found from relaxing into the familiarity of research and writing was short-lived. After a few tries, some of those Product Briefs became so compelling that the brief was no longer enough. I had outlined problems that needed solutions (or should I say outcomes).

The next few months were a whirlwind of trial-and-error:

• Give story mapping a go
• Attempt establishing a true Minimal Viable Product (many times)
• Listening to customers
• Ask our engineers to build a solution and just before releasing realize I should have dug deeper to understand the problem so we could build the right outcome — cut to the first painful lesson resulting in throwaway code
• Establishing ways to update users on product releases
• Give 1,000 different approaches to communication for cross-team collaboration a go and succeed maybe 28 times

And as I came up to my one-year tenure we were on the precipice of releasing one more initiative I had seen through from conceptualization to…

“Hold up.”

On the day of release, one of my key stakeholders didn’t feel ready. They were integral in ensuring our customers would be prepared and moving forward without their blessing was not the right move for our users’ experience. So the rest of the day was spent by the engineers hastily backing out the new code and by me communicating to all stakeholders and internal teams about the change in plans.

Trampled

Okay, so the falling flat on my face and wildebeests that subsequently trampled me were figurative. But after pulling the plug on the day of release, it’s exactly how I felt. What did I do wrong and what did I miss to have got us all the way to the finish line only not to cross it?

I wish I could point to one specific thing and say that’s it. That’s where I messed up. But in all honesty, the answer is probably both everything and nothing. Reflecting on all that led up to that moment I did a lot of things right.

1. I communicated with stakeholders in multiple channels on multiple occasions
2. I documented our progress throughout the entire process
3. I got the thumbs up from all stakeholders involved

But there were also moments of hesitation from stakeholders, and, in hindsight probably more dangerously, moments of disengagement. It was in those moments where the stakeholders weren’t engaging where I should have taken the time to press, to ask questions, to create curiosity. Instead, while my gut was telling me otherwise, I thought “Well that’s easier, I can just move on and it’s their own fault if they fall behind.”

The year was hard. Product Management is hard. And those moments of disengagement felt easy. But if I’d just put in that little bit of extra effort at the moment… maybe I wouldn’t be here today, laying in the dirt trampled by a pack of wildebeests.

Vancouver Weather

So what now? My manager likes to remind me

We’re not failing, we’re learning

And this is where Vancouver’s weather comes into play. Vancouver is literally in a rainforest, so it rains a lot. And more often than not it’s grey and cloudy, and gloomy, and socked in… but the moment the clouds part, and the moment there’s a glimmer of sunlight, every single day of grey and gloom is forgotten and all anyone can think of is why Vancouver is one of the most beautiful cities in the world.

After the plug got pulled, I reflected on everything I did wrong and everything I could have done differently. And as I went backward through the process and saw everything I had done to get here, I began to see all the things I did right and the opportunities I have to do it better next time. And dare I say it… I think I see a sliver of sunshine.