The Myth of Product Nirvana
I’m very lucky. I co-host a podcast where I get to talk to amazing people in the Product field; I speak at conferences and get to spend time with some amazing presenters; and I’m a participant in multiple communities of people at the top of their jobs, all striving to get even better. That means I get to hear a lot of great stories of how they’ve succeeded.
What’s even more valuable, though, are the stories about how they’re struggling. Of the mistakes that they’ve made. Of the things that they’ve learned and done better - and of the things that they have not been able to fix.
There are some amazing product people out there, and even some really wonderful product organisations - places where the teams are empowered, with clear guidance on what they’re trying to achieve, collaborating well with their Dev, Sales, Ops & Marketing partners. But there are a lot more firms where this is not the case… and most have pockets of both good and bad practices.
Let’s adapt William Gibson’s take on technology (‘The future is already here – it’s just not very evenly distributed’):
Good product practice is here - it’s just not very evenly distributed, even within the same organisations.
A story: A small/medium enterprise brought me in to help their product teams. The company was well established, successful, and growing at 9% year-on-year… but they wanted to get to 11%. There were many things that they could have changed, and a number of opportunities for change in order to do so - they were leaving opportunity on the table.
To embrace those changes, they would have had to fundamentally reshape the approach to experimentation and prioritisation that the CEO and Founder/Chairman favoured. They would have had to move from a top-down, CEO as Chief Project Manager approach, to one that empowered others to shape the actual solutions to the prioritised challenges. And that was not something that they were ready for.
I didn’t last long there, and added very little value - but I learned a lot. The biggest was to understand that while I may have been correct about the opportunity, there was no way that I was ever going to convince them that they were wrong. After all, they were successful, growing and profitable. Why should they change? Why would they want to?
The truth is that most of us work in situations like this. Despite what you hear & read, finding a situation where people consistently work according to the principles that Marty Cagan espouses can be difficult. Marty’s lucky - he chooses who he wants to work with; he has the security to walk away from situations that don’t work for him, and has the ability to influence at CEO and Board level. Most of us are not in that position.
That’s not to say that change isn’t possible. Even as a mid-level manager, you can initiate a change in your organisation. It’s hard, it can take a long time, extraordinary amounts of patience, and you need to be lucky - but it can be done. I had a great chat with Douglas Squirrel about this recently - he’s a real champion of this approach.
The takeaway:
Utopia is a myth: Take everything you read and hear about the best product teams with a grain of salt - no place is perfect - not for everyone, and not all the time. The grass may be greener, but there’s no place where the job is always easy and a joy. (That’s why they pay you.)
Recognise the challenge: Take a deep breath and a step back, and recognise what situation you’re in. If you believe it needs to change, ask:
Do others agree that the change is necessary?
Can you make the needed changes?
Given any obstacles, do you want the challenge of doing so?
If so, then…Take small steps: Change management is hard. Recognise that you’re likely going to have to nudge the organisation in the right direction, even if you have the backing of the right people.
Know that you are not alone: Product can be a hard and lonely job - practising it while also trying to change how people work together is at least 10x harder. Finding a support network of people who are on the same journey can be invaluable.
And - if you can, and if you need to - learn your lessons & move on: No job is worth being miserable over - it’ll affect you, your relationships, and your prospects of getting a better job. Circumstances don’t always make this possible, but simply recognising that you’re in a bad environment has made a massive difference for me in the past.