A fond farewell ❤
When I accepted this job in February 2020, I didn’t know that I would be starting a new job amidst the rapid spread of a global pandemic. I didn’t know that it would be two years before I met any of my colleagues in person. I was excited to dive into a new organization, work on a new project, and make some new work friends.
That all changed in my first two weeks 😅
Despite not meeting folks in person, I definitely felt the warmth and camaraderie of this team right away. Actually, I felt it even before I joined the team, when they graciously allowed me to “visit” them virtually during their team retreat a few months prior. The Planet 4 team are truly an intergalactic, interdisciplinary team of wizards, always down to help each other out, and that love shines through in the delivery of the product.
The Planet 4 community is also amazing, and hard to leave! Thanks everyone for puzzling through each other’s questions, listening to and applauding each others success stories, and collectively rolling your eyes at the dad-jokes slack-bot 😂. I feel like the health of a community can be measured by how comfortable people feel asking for support or feedback out in the open, and the Planet 4 community is thriving by that measure.
I’m leaving at an exciting time for Planet 4, which is bittersweet, but as I have said to the team, feels good because I feel like I’m leaving the product in better shape than I found it. I am so proud of what we have accomplished over the past 3 years, including, but not limited to: a revamp of the main navigation features, a swiss-army-knife form builder, and working at the cutting-edge of Wordpress’s features (often predicting the future and waiting for Wordpress to catch up 🔮😉).
Product management is a weird discipline because you can’t exactly point at something and say, ‘that, I did that’. I have a hard time taking credit for anything, honestly, because it’s all about collaboration and teamwork, and making sure everyone feels heard, appreciated, and considered in the process of making decisions and charting a path forward. As an empathetic person, I love this work because I love bringing people together, understanding their different perspectives and needs, and building things that benefit the collective as larger than the sum of its parts.
Ok, Luca asked me to impart some wisdom, so here’s some random thoughts:
You have to say no a lot, and that’s a good thing.
I recently learned the phrase “productive no” in a consent workshop and it’s a perfect way to describe the importance of this work. In the western culture I am a part of, ‘no’ is a bad word. Flipping the script by seeing ‘no’ as a positive thing has had a tremendous impact on this product. ‘No’ forces us to prioritize what we focus on. ‘No’ invites us to get creative and think more expansively about ways to solve a problem. ‘No’ is a way to build trust, because it’s honest and direct. As a dear friend of mine puts it, “how can I trust your yes if you never say no?”
Look for patterns.
Some of our best ideas have come from, as PETA puts it, “feeding two birds with one scone”. One of the great things about constantly iterating on a product is when you realize that you can build features that suit many purposes. Our crowning example of this is the form builder — we had all these different ideas we were exploring: petition forms, email signup, quizzes, surveys, games, etc. and taking a step back and realizing that instead of building these things piecemeal we could provide something that could do all of it, and more, was a powerful moment.
Decide what to name things, and stick with those names.
This is kind of a silly one but it’s important — language matters! When working cross-culturally, cross-functionally, and often asynchronously, picking names for things and sticking with them is crucial. Especially when working in technology, you have to get pretty creative to avoid a name collision (multiple things with the same name), or #translationfail (trying to align but using different words/language and therefore talking past each other). Ask anyone on the P4 team what a post type is and they’ll tell you a funny story.
Be intentional about meeting culture and etiquette.
I knew when I took this job that I was going to be working early hours. While it was painful at times, I appreciated it because it made me extra judicious about how I spent my precious early hours.
Hot Tips:
- No agenda? No meeting. (People will appreciate getting their time back)
- Meetings need a notetaker, action and decision points especially need to be documented.
- If its a meeting to get to know people, make it fun!
I’m so grateful to the CollabLab team for ushering in a new Asana-fied era at Greenpeace, I’m hopeful that that will lead to more asynchronous updates-sharing and free up meeting time for actual human connection.
Work can be fun!
Please folks, continue the games and dance parties and stretch breaks and silly zoom calls after I leave! Gatheround, Jackbox Games, Fishbowl, or a video-off dance party are great tools for building connection and remembering our humanity in a two-dimensional, talking-heads world.
Ok, that’s all the waxing poetic I have in me. Thank you, Greenpeace, for a wild and wonderful past 3 years. I will miss you all so so much, but knowing this tiny world, I wouldn’t be surprised if our paths crossed again.
Love,
suzi
