Schrödinger's Product Team

When other people can believe that your team is either doing a great job or a terrible one - and you don’t know which! - it’s a real problem.

Everything is going great. You’ve got some ambitious goals, but the team is working well - your customers are engaged; you understand the problem at hand, and have a great way to meet their needs. There are some dependencies, but other teams have them under control. 

At least, that’s what you heard the last time you talked to them.

Welcome to Schrödinger's Product Team. They’re either going to  drop you in the deep end (by not delivering what you’d planned on, by the time you’re expecting it), or save your bacon (by meeting or exceeding your expectations) .But until you’ve talked with them, both things are equally possible.

Well, not equally possible - you’ve got a bias about which is more likely, based on previous experiences with that team, their reputation, and your last interaction with them.

Let’s look at this from a different perspective: who is depending on your team to deliver something critical to their own plans? When’s the last time they heard from you?

Look at this from three perspectives:

1 - Peers

For the teams that will be integrating with your work internally - or critical partners that you integrate with - it’s critical that they are kept up to date with pretty much any change - approach, technical implementation details, progress, when they can test against different levels of functionality, target customer profiles, etc.

This sounds onerous, but it doesn’t need to be: a changelog, Slack channel, or weeknotes that provide just enough information for interested parties to come and talk to you will be enough in most cases. 

That said, there’s no single approach that works for everyone. You’ll need to iterate based on the demands on your team’s time and the needs of those depending on you. Don’t treat this as a frustration, but recognise that it’s a normal growth process in every organisation.

What you’re striving for here is a consistent way of pushing information out that requires minimal effort, but which allows others to pull whenever relevant - also with minimal effort on their part.

2 - Stakeholders

Most stakeholders aren’t as interested in all of the details - they don’t care as much how you do it, so long as it meets their needs. The trick is in understanding when a change in the how has a material impact on what they’re expecting.

At the most basic level, they’ll need  to know about any changes to functionality, delivery dates, and which customer profiles are in target at each stage. Be sure that you know why they need the work that your team is doing: is there a time or regulatory dependency? Is it critical to their bonus? Is it a component in a larger initiative? What will the impact be of any changes from your team? Politics play a massive part in this - make sure you know what the dynamics are. (Motivation mapping is a great approach here.)

Other parts of the organisation may use different communication tools, cadences, and reporting approaches. You can’t assume that the way you communicate with peer teams is applicable in these circumstances, and you’ll need to adapt as needed. 

One good way of doing this is using an Influence/Interest Map. 

You may have seen this elsewhere as a Power/Interest Grid - but that often leads to misconceptions.  The CEO’s assistant, for example, has an awful lot of influence but less explicit power - make sure you map out your  communications strategy appropriately. (One great way to do this is to use Emily Webber’s Team Onion approach.)

When I was onboarding with a new client, I asked Kit Collingwood if there were any other questions I should have asked her. She called out that I’d not asked how she likes to be communicated with (how often, what information she needs, what tools to use), which was an eye-opener. It’s something I now ask every time.

3. Customers

Communicating with your users (and if you’re B2B, your buyers as a distinct population as well) is a two way street. You’ll want to continually explore things with them so that you understand their needs  and how they’re changing. (They’re often changing!) You’ll also want to be working hand in hand with your Sales, Support and Success teams (for B2B), or Marketing and Sales (for B2C) to help set and control expectations in the market.

The takeaway…

The critical thing to remember here is that no one cares what you’re working on, except when it’s important for them.

Taking control of how they get that information goes a long way in how they perceive you - and can avert significant issues that result from assumptions. Use the Product Environment Canvas to evaluate potential problems before they blow up.