Keep a feature journal
Guard it like your diary
More often than not, a product manager will be mentally plagued with feature ideas. Most can see their product years out, used my millions and doing everything they have ever dreamed it to do. I like these managers, the dreamers, but they can very quickly find themselves in a confused state when trying to balance what their product can do now, how it is being positioned to do what it can do in the future and what it actually should do far down the road.
Because you should always have the ability to change, iterate and adapt what you are doing, you should try new things with testing and learning. You never know what idea might take hold but take it from me — you can’t test them all when you want to. So, get in the habit of writing things down whenever you have the idea. The sheer act of writing it will help cement it in your memory and you will also have a hard copy of it in your journal. If you have worked with product managers in the past, they all have a version of this journal. From a Moleskine reporter book to a Trello page to a post-it note shoe box, find what works for you and stick with it.
I call it a journal because I truly think that the total content is private. It is an area for you to get it all out, dream big and go bold on what you want to do. It will allow you to work through things without distraction and then slowly introduce the concepts to your team after you have had the time to work them out. I wouldn’t go so far as a “Persian Debate” (where you would need to present the ideas both drunk and then sober to see if it is really a good one) but I would temper the ideas to present them to your team to bring about a debate. Make sure that you don’t ever prescribe these because there is little to no chance that your idea is exactly what is going to work for your users. You need your teams input, knowledge and experience to make it all work.
