The other day I had a message out of the blue from a friend I’d not spoken to in a long time, asking how I was and to see if I wanted to meet up.
I felt guilty. I’d not spoken to them in ages, but I really value their friendship. I didn’t want them to think I’d forgotten about them, I’ve just been busy with other life stuff.
I wrote back hastily to say sorry and explain how busy I’d been. “Let’s get a date in the diary! It’s been too long!”.
I feel like a bad friend, but know that they understand why I’ve not seen them. Life is busy… I have young kids and live on a farm. The thing is, it’s not an unusual occurrence.
It got me thinking about work. I am a Senior Product Manager across a large portfolio of work with a small team. I need to prioritise both the broad areas to focus on as well as features within any specific product. Sometimes I get an email asking “what’s happening with the update of my site?”, which I need to remind myself of, digging through the backlog. The similar feeling as I had with my friend starts to creep up on me…
I then have a bunch of questions:
- Do I get too many of these types of message?
- Does that indicate that I’m doing something wrong?
- How should I manage things so they’re not cut adrift?
- How can I tell them I think they’re important, but maybe not on the top of the agenda?
- How do I keep that relationship healthy, even if I’m not directly working on things they really care about?
Emotions can get in the way
When my friend got in touch, I was sad that I’d let communication with them slip. It’s easy to feel the same about a work collegue and then immediately feel like you need to make it up to them. You want to make it right.
Should I reprioritise because of neglect in that relationship? Just because they got in touch, do I have to jump on that? I don’t think that’s right, so I don’t think it’s a good idea to get too emotionally attached.
What does “I’ve been busy” mean to them?
So, I tell them how sorry I am and that I’ve been so busy. What do they care? They just want an answer. So, how can I show them less about how busy I am, and what the priority is for their problem? Well, that’s what a backlog is for… right?
What a product backlog means to me vs what it means to them
I show them a backlog, and how much other work is prioritised above them. They think it’s a black hole. They still have a real problem they need to solve, and I’m blocking them.
Sometimes this means they’ll find alternative routes to solve their issue which could be problematic. We’ve had many examples of people making their own rival website separate to the company site, just because we couldn’t put all the pictures they wanted on there. To solve that I need robust governance as well as a wider culture shift to get people to understand the bigger picture of what a website is for… but that won’t happen overnight. The work I need to do now is not show them how their feature is lower down a list, but how the stuff higher up the list is going to help them even more.
How I want to manage this from now on
You’re not a bad friend for not seeing everyone all the time, and you’re not a bad PM for having a large portfolio. But you are a bad PM if you’re not working in the open enough.
I think the answer to my first question – Do I get too many of these types of message? – is yes. They’re a symptom of not being open enough and not dedicating enough time to explaining what I’m trying to do.
I want to:
- Try harder to be pro-active.
I should get out in front of people and invite more people to demos. I need to reduce the amount of messages from seemingly forgotten friends. - Keep a focus on the big stuff that will help everyone.
I don’t want to fire-fight everyone’s design issues on their bit of the site, I want a design system that everyone understands and buys into.
I don’t want to fix the fact they can’t add a picture to their bespoke listing of facilities, I want a content model of “facilities” across the institute that makes for better holistic find-ability.
Avoid promising features. I want to fix the bigger user need gaps, and that’s not reacting to the symptom, it’s fixing the cause. - Find the time to explain it all.
I want to take them for coffee and explain the context and why the future is looking bright. I need to hear them out too. Can they help me build a better picture to prioritise? Probably.
John Bourne 