Applying lessons from ‘Go’ to Product Management
Go is a board game that’s been around for at least 2,500 years. You place either black or white stones on a grid, aiming to capture your opponent’s stones and secure territory. Renowned for its complexity, there are more valid board positions on a standard 19x19 Go board than there are atoms in the known universe (so probably don’t try to memorise them).
I started playing Go during the COVID-19 lockdown in the UK in 2020 and got hooked on the depth, variety and elegance of the game. Here are some lessons, which Product Managers can apply, that I’ve learned by playing the game.
Start small
There are three standard sizes of Go board. The most common is a 19x19 grid, but you don’t typically start there. The general advice is to start with a much smaller 9x9 board, then move to 13x13, and finally up to the full 19x19 size. In this way, you learn the basic mechanics of playing Go — what’s beneficial and what absolutely isn’t beneficial, or why did you do that? — with near-instant feedback.
On a larger board, poor choices are harder to catch. It can be 100 turns before you realise that early stone — that you placed one step closer to the edge of the board than you could have — is now going to cost you a quarter of your points.
For Product Managers seeking value in an environment of uncertainty, starting by taking small, manageable risks grants you the insight that will enable you to find the right direction. Breaking large initiatives into smaller increments and getting them live is a great way to get real feedback that you can continually incorporate into your approach.
Learn from your mistakes
Go beginners are advised to start on a small board, but the received wisdom goes a little further than that, namely that you should lose your first 50 games as quickly as you can. There’s some nuance here. What this really means is, don’t overthink your moves; it is better to be playing, making errors, recognising those errors, and playing again, than it would be to try to foresee all possible outcomes because there are just too many. If you happen to get some wins along the way then great, but what you learn is a more meaningful measure of success.
Over time you will likely focus more and more on playing to win, but you can never entirely eliminate mistakes. When those mistakes inevitably happen, the best thing you can do is reflect on them and take those lessons into your next game.
If Product Managers only made decisions when they were certain of the outcome, very little would get done. The responsibility of the Product Manager is to make a judgement about the right level of risk to take for any individual decision in order to maximise the positive outcomes, and there isn’t a Product Manager in the world who does not occasionally get that wrong. Owning those mistakes, reflecting on them, and taking that wisdom into the next decision is what sets excellent Product Managers apart.
Familiar patterns, familiar outcomes
Once you’ve been playing for a little while, making mistakes and building your knowledge piece-by-piece, you’ll inevitably start to notice patterns. Aggressive play might often pay off in the centre of the board, but the same approach in a corner unavoidably leads to your stones being captured. You might start to notice a certain zig-zag pattern that always ends in disaster. Perhaps there’s a neat little loop of stones you can build that has no weaknesses? In time, these patterns will become so familiar that you’ll see when they’re coming and know straight away what the outcome will be. This reduces the cognitive load of ‘reading’ the board and lets you focus on other areas with greater uncertainty.
Intuition, or ‘gut feel’, are not the most common tools to reach for in the Product Manager toolkit, but they can be seen as experience directing you semi-consciously and can be incredibly useful. An intuitive sense of the likely benefit of a change can help guide you on whether to go ahead with a small increment of it, pause to estimate it properly, or just skip it entirely and focus on other priorities.
See the big picture
Whether it’s a swift 9x9 battle or an expansive 19x19 campaign, the key to effective Go play is to maintain a good sense of the overall board state. Stepping back from the individual pieces and patterns, ask yourself: do I have the momentum? What is my path from here to victory?
It is far too easy to see an opportunity, pursue it, and when it starts to look iffy, just plough on — placing a bigger and bigger bet on it turning out well for you. In Go, it is often best to abandon a particular sequence and seek out a better opportunity elsewhere. There’s even a word for this — tenuki — a move where you regain the initiative by playing elsewhere.
Seeing the big picture and constantly assessing where to place your biggest bets requires experience, discipline, and focus, but the results will speak for themselves in Go and in Product Management alike.
Conclusions
The choices in front of the Product Manager are much the same as those of the Go player — they are many, varied, and it is impossible to know which will drive better outcomes than others. But you can improve your odds and grow in confidence by applying some of the lessons here; start small, learn from your mistakes, recognise familiar patterns and always see the big picture.
For anyone interested in learning to play Go, you can pick up the basics online. Have fun!
John Ely is Head of Product at MPB, the largest global platform to buy, sell and trade used photo & video gear. https://www.mpb.com
