Challenges in being a Product Manager in a remote workplace and tips on how to tackle them
In the last months, I had the opportunity to get to know 10 different product managers, thanks to the Product Lead position that I took over in my current company.
The first thing that I wanted in this new position, was to get to know them. Even though we work remotely. By learning about their lives, their hobbies, their way of working, their expectations, their struggles and their successes, I assumed that I could find ways to help them grow in their role. This was my hypothesis.
First thing that surprised me, after starting the one on one meetings with each of them, was that all of them were asking for feedback. Both types of feedback: critical and positive, to help them know how to improve and bring their most value. When I think about it now (like a small introspection), it’s like the life of a product, it needs constant user feedback to grow in an useful way.
To gather feedback and be able to really help out from the start, was a difficult task. At least this is how it looked like at the beginning. How to give them feedback, when I don’t see them in their daily work with their teams?
Thanks to an online course offered by Felix Lopez about engineering management, I learned that one way to gather feedback about a team member that I don’t see in their everyday work, is to talk with their peers and ask for constant feedback, at least once a month.
I put this advice into practice and I planned 20 minutes coffees with the team leaders of each scrum team, where each product manager belonged to.
I prepared a set of questions and started the marathon of coffees.
The 20 minutes coffees converted into 40 minutes to 1 hour coffees, where I received lots of useful feedback about the product managers, the relationship between the team lead and the product manager, the relationship between the product manager and the rest of the team members and the struggles of the team leaders as well. It was both emotionally challenging and fulfilling to get know them as well. It gave me a better view of each team and their struggles.
At the end of each coffee, I made a summary of the feedback by splitting it into 2 parts: good and to improve. In the next one on one time with each product manager, I shared the feedback with them. Each of them was grateful to be able to receive it and take action on the improving part.
This process of getting to know the product managers, to help them, to talk with the team leaders and to write down the feedback, was the very beginning in finding the common struggles of the product managers and in seeing the challenges of working in a remote workplace.
Therefore I can underline as of today the following challenges:
- lack of agreements on how to work together as a team
- lack of constant and open feedback
- lack of one on one time between the product manager and the rest of team members
- lack of trust
- misalignment between the product manager and the team leader.
Let’s take them one by one and understand how not tackling them, will lead to unhappy and weak teams.
Lack of agreements on how to work together as a team
The pandemic forced us to start working remotely. Surprisingly we saw that it’s not impossible, like thought before and we can deliver (at least) the same value to our users.
The problem was that the change was sudden and imposed, without any previous training and “how to”. This means that natural behaviors that happen in a workplace where we meet everyday are not considered by default in a remote workplace.
For example:
In the morning you go to the office kitchen to get some coffee and you meet other colleagues and start chatting and sharing work or non-work related stories. This would happen naturally and there would be no previously defined agreement.
In a remote workplace, where is not agreed between all how and when all share such moments, could have disadvantages like:
- meetings could get longer and unfocused because people share these stories the time they get together
- different team members will get frustrated because some meetings are getting too long and will get skeptical to attend them to bring their valuable feedback.
My proposal is to sit down with the entire team and start defining how does the team want to work together remotely.
Firstly, all team members write down all the things they would like to agree on.
The list could include:
- Team building
- How to stick together?
- Feedback
- Acceptance criteria
- Deployments
- Pairing
- Buddies
- Scrum ceremonies
- Objectives and key results
- Code review
Each team member votes a limited number of topics.
The team starts to define the most voted topic and agree on how they all want to work.
Lastly the summary of the agreement has to be written down and shared with all.
Continue with the next most voted topic and repeat until all topics are covered.
Disclosure: the team agreements consist of constant work as the team evolves over time and new topics are considered to be agreed on. This is not an one time job!
Lack of constant and open feedback
No matter the working policy, the constant and open feedback is a must to build strong teams. Strong teams are able to build powerful products, which solve users needs.
In a remote workplace, it’s key to have an agreement in the team on how to provide feedback.
BUT, let’s also be honest that not everybody knows how to provide feedback. It’s not something that we are taught in the workplace. My proposal is to provide tools and frameworks, which each team member could understand and learn how to provide effective feedback. Maybe this is not a product manager’s by the book responsibility, but I strongly believe that a product manager has to be an advocate of clear bidirectional communication with the team and has to do everything in their power to achieve it. The framework I recommend is called the SBI framework.
Lack of trust
I write a lot about trust, communication, strong teams, strong products. But why is this so relevant? And why is it mandatory in a remote workplace?
By building a safe environment where the team members can make mistakes with no fear, in consequence they can experiment, improve and change things. When trust is present in the team, the failures are welcomed as a way of learning and improving.
BUT, what does having trust mean? To feel confident to say to the rest of the team:
- “I don’t know.”
- “I need help.”
- “I made a mistake.”
- “I feel unsure/scared/unprepared/overwhelmed/frustrated/happy/confident.”
And nobody will judge you.
It’s so important to achieve having trust between the team members in a remote workplace, because behind the screens, in our homes, we are alone. As social human beings, we need to feel part of something, to belong, so that we can offer our best.
Lack of one on one time between the product manager and the rest of team members
Let’s imagine a bit the day of a product manager to better understand this challenge.
On a daily basis the product manager is in constant contact with the stakeholders, to gather feedback about the product needs. It ensures that the feedback is translated in the Product Backlog in a transparent, clear and understood manner for the rest of the team. It’s daily challenge is to communicate clearly and keep in mind the strategy and vision.
In a remote workplace, this means that the product manager spends a lot of time in meetings. Without an agreed space where the whole team spends time to build trust, the product manager will not spend enough quality time with the team members to get to know each others at a personal level. Without this connection, the communication will flow less and misunderstandings could happen frequently.
Why? Because we are social human beings and we can’t leave our emotions at home when we are at work. And guess what? Now we work from home!
The communication is the number one soft skill of a product manager, which if it doesn’t flow with the team members, the product evolution will suffer and the frustration inside the team will grow.
My proposal is to agree with the team on how will the product manager spend one on one quality time with the team members. Could be a 20 minutes recurrent coffee session with each team member, where the product manager requests/offers feedback. Step by step this will help the communication flow and build trust with each team member.
Misalignment between the product manager and the team leader
In this other post of mine, I am underlining the benefits of having the team leader as the product manager’s best friend. But what happens when this doesn’t happen? What happens when there is a misalignment between the product manager and the team leader?
My learning is that the team will suffer, the communication will not flow clearly, which leads to a weak team. Weak teams have a harder time to build strong products.
My proposal is to start building this relationship, with one on one spent time, where both offer feedback and find a common ground to be able to properly communicate. If it doesn’t work, ask for help from within the company. It is essential to have a healthy relationship between the product manager and the team leader, as the team leader is the only team member that is not an individual contributor and is able to create a strong bridge between the product manager and the team.
Final Notes
It is a beautiful path to deeply get to know different product managers and team leaders. Emotionally challenging and beautiful.
My learning is that the key of a successful product, are teams which:
- have continuously defined team agreements
- share constructive and open feedback
- have trust as their core pillar
- have clear communication between all team members
- have their product manager and team leader as close as best friends.
