Parenting as a Product

My 4-Year-Old daughter wouldn’t put her shoes on this morning as we were getting ready to leave the house. She simply said ‘No’ when I asked her to put her shoes on, and sat on the floor looking grumpy. If you have kids, you know what that looks like. You also know how frustrating it could be, when all you want is to get out the door.

Trying to channel my frustration, it really made me think of how I deal with frustration at work. Getting mad rarely helps. When someone at work is being difficult, I try to reason with them and share what I feel. Why can’t that be applied to parenting?

Looking at the bigger picture, it’s not just about difficult times. Product Management is the art of building things, from the moment you know there’s a need for something; building it; being proud of what you created, then improving it. The techniques I use at work can definitely be applied to parenting.

1. Planning: The most stressful thing about being a parent and working in tech is lack of time. Being available for work while trying to spend time with your family. For the first few years of parenting, I felt guilty all the time. I felt like I’m not working hard enough and also not spending enough time with my kids. The way I deal with lack of time at work is planning — everything from planning my day to planning our roadmap. The way I deal with lack of time as a parent is planning for when I’ll spend time with my kids, and making sure that on days that I’m not with them they are with someone they love spending time with.
2. Leading: As a Product Manager, I try to communicate the ‘Why’ and not the ‘How’. It’s important to allow teams to be creative and I would never want to take that away from someone. This is something that could potentially be hard with kids, who decide they want to wear sandals when it’s raining outside. However, it’s important to allow them to explore the options available for them, so that they can make the best choices for them. Explain the why and then let go.
3. Settle: For Product Managers perfection is the enemy. It’s all about letting go and living with the “good and now” vs. “perfect but much later”. Iteration is the key for improvements. The same goes with kids; if you try to have spotlessly clean children who always behave perfectly, you’ll always be disappointed. I try to set reasonable expectations, then take them down a notch. I don’t argue about wardrobe choices; don’t negotiate anything related to food (it’s fine if they took two bites and don’t want to eat anymore); and above all — I try to be empathetic to their issues, even if it’s because the problem is that they can’t find the exact green they need for their drawing (true story).

Parenting is hard, but so is work, yet we somehow make it work. Letting little things go, thorough planning and leading with confidence is key — both at home and at work.