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Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

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Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#31

Post by writtenAnswer »

barryvan wrote: post #29

I'm a PM and I assumed that this was parody at first. I've been guilty of using terms like this with customers ("Not something we can do at the moment, but certainly something to think about down the track."), but always with a sense of discomfort -- or an attempt to make it clear that it's a "nice no". Inside a company, I don't think there should be space for these sorts of responses. I can see these only being nece…

I mean, what do you expect from AI generated responses LOL. It is literally from some BS article from some dude who has never been a successful Product Manager.

I think its a funny website to browse and say "haha", but nothing more.

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#32

Post by barryvan »

writtenAnswer wrote: post #31
barryvan wrote: post #29

I'm a PM and I assumed that this was parody at first. I've been guilty of using terms like this with customers ("Not something we can do at the moment, but certainly something to think about down the track."), but always with a sense of discomfort -- or an attempt to make it clear that it's a "nice no". Inside a company, I don't think there should be space for these sorts of responses. I can see these only being nece…

I mean, what do you expect from AI generated responses LOL. It is literally from some BS article from some dude who has never been a successful Product Manager. I think its a funny website to browse and say "haha", but nothing more.

Ah -- I missed that it was AI-generated! That being the case, you're not wrong.

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#34

Post by JohnMakin »

gopalv wrote: post #3

This sort of advice is parodied in "Yes, Prime Minister" as the 4 step strategy for "crisis management" 1: Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. 2: Something may be happen but we should wait and see 3: Maybe we should do something about it, but there is no clear action 4: Maybe there was something we could've done, but it's too late now Stringing along a bunch of people who think they are being heard and listened t…

On climate change, are we somewhere between step 3 and 4? It sure looks a lot that way to me. Maybe closer to 4 soon. That conversation is exhausting, or kind of the inverse of this, overwhelming confidence in the success of future technologies that do not really exist yet.

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#35

Post by davidgerard »

karaterobot wrote: post #27

I kind of wish the answer would just be "no, we're not doing that". The lines in this website all strike me as a way to toy with people's expectations. If I had an idea, and presented it, and a PM told me "let’s keep this in mind for future consideration" or anything like that, I'd either take them at their word, or not. If I take them at their word, I'll either keep believing my input was considered valuable, and th…

Are you in the US? In UK companies, everything from that bot is somewhere between "no" and "no, fuck off". The more qualifiers you add, the ruder you're intending to be.

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#36

Post by Dylan16807 »

ryandrake wrote: post #25
asoneth wrote: post #11

There are many kinds of "negative" responses: 0. This idea is bad. 1. This idea is probably bad, but if someone wants to put together a more compelling argument we will discuss it at a future meeting. 2. This idea needs to be more fully developed before we can decide whether it is good or bad. 3. This idea is probably good, but it will remain in backlog limbo until someone makes a compelling argument that it is a pri…

In most companies I've worked, in order to actually implement an idea, you need to prove a few things, whether the person proposing it is the PM, an engineer, or any other person involved in the product: 1. The idea is technically feasible 2. The idea aligns with company's business goals 3. The idea is our team's responsibility and cannot be done by another team 4. The idea is more important than the other things our…

If it meets 1-4 does it get forgotten or does someone reliably come back to check for 5 becoming true?

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#37

Post by elevatedastalt »

p1necone wrote: post #26
ryandrake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most companies I've worked, in order to actually implement an idea, you need to prove a few things, whether the person proposing it is the PM, an engineer, or any other person involved in the product: 1. The idea is technically feasible 2. The idea aligns with company's business goals 3. The idea is our team's responsibility and cannot be done by another team 4. The idea is more important than the other things our…

In my experience the more fine grained an organizations issue tracking/planning is the more this is a problem vs a reasonable process. If you have to convince someone of all of those things in order to build some reasonably large thing over the space of a few weeks, that's probably reasonable. If you have to convince someone of all of those things in order to allocate a few hours to fixing some tech debt or minor bug…

Usually most engineers have some slack time and can pick things up to fix. The problem is not in them doing that. The issues arrises in one of two things—

[1] They either use the fact that they are fixing that thing as an excuse to not work on or deliver on time a different, more important task. If that happens, obvious questions about prioritization occur.

[2] They want a substantial amount of credit or recognition for doing it. Usually such fixes don't receive exec attention (since execs are tracking more important projects) and so don't get the same due as a properly tracked project does.

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#38

Post by Etheryte »

JohnMakin wrote: post #34
gopalv wrote: post #3

This sort of advice is parodied in "Yes, Prime Minister" as the 4 step strategy for "crisis management" 1: Don't worry, nothing's going to happen. 2: Something may be happen but we should wait and see 3: Maybe we should do something about it, but there is no clear action 4: Maybe there was something we could've done, but it's too late now Stringing along a bunch of people who think they are being heard and listened t…

On climate change, are we somewhere between step 3 and 4? It sure looks a lot that way to me. Maybe closer to 4 soon. That conversation is exhausting, or kind of the inverse of this, overwhelming confidence in the success of future technologies that do not really exist yet.

I think whether you're at 3 or 4 depends largely on what latitude you live at. I have many colleagues who are seriously considering moving because the weather is getting too extreme where they're at. Meanwhile people in mellower climates don't even see there's a problem, they're happy there's somewhere warm they can take a holiday in the cold months.

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#39

Post by ghaff »

asoneth wrote: post #11

There are many kinds of "negative" responses: 0. This idea is bad. 1. This idea is probably bad, but if someone wants to put together a more compelling argument we will discuss it at a future meeting. 2. This idea needs to be more fully developed before we can decide whether it is good or bad. 3. This idea is probably good, but it will remain in backlog limbo until someone makes a compelling argument that it is a pri…

At a higher level, does the revenue it could result in be enough to move the needle and therefore be worth the attention up and down and across the management chain (to the degree it's a discrete program)?

Re: Master the Art of the Product Manager 'No'

#40

Post by joshuanapoli »

Dylan16807 wrote: post #36
ryandrake wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In most companies I've worked, in order to actually implement an idea, you need to prove a few things, whether the person proposing it is the PM, an engineer, or any other person involved in the product: 1. The idea is technically feasible 2. The idea aligns with company's business goals 3. The idea is our team's responsibility and cannot be done by another team 4. The idea is more important than the other things our…

If it meets 1-4 does it get forgotten or does someone reliably come back to check for 5 becoming true?

Probably the person who came up with the idea remains the most invested in it, and they should to watch for number 5 “the right moment” to bring it up again.
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