Prioritization, product stewardship, and the hardest part about being a product manager
I used to believe that the hardest part about being a product manager is effective prioritization. I don’t think that’s true any more. I now believe the hardest part about being a PM is this:
There is no way to shorten the time and dedication it takes to become your product and its industry’s most knowledgeable and empathic expert.
But I kind of skipped over some things there. Let’s step back a bit.
Realization 1: it’s not about prioritization
If you put a bunch of product managers in a room it won’t take long for them to start talking about their favorite prioritization methods. And you’ll find me in that conversation as well. But after working on a fairly small team for over three years, I realize that I’ve been stressing out about prioritization too much.
First, when you’re on a small team there are only so many things you can work on in a (let’s say) 12-week period. In fact, you can do one or two big things, and maybe a couple of smaller ones.
Second, when you can only work on a very limited number of things — and provided your team is engaged in…
