Giving Effective Feedback
I’ve seen several posts written, and written several myself, about gathering effective feedback when you are in product management. But what about everyone else that’s interfacing with product? How can you give PdMs good, solid feedback on a consistent basis?
First, lets take a quick step back - why do we encourage anyone and everyone to give feedback? Isn’t it the PdM’s job to identify the ways to make the product better?
it’s true that one of the core tasks of product managers is to gather and filter input, make decisions based on it and/or make recommendations to senior management about directions to take or priorities to pay attention to. But, there’s one important thing that everyone in an organization should always remember - it’s everyone’s job, all the time, to help make products the best they can be.
Many PMs will tell you that they’d rather receive what someone thinks to be a crappy idea than no ideas at all. Ensure there is in fact a reason for the suggestion and it does provide value - or, at least, you think it does.
I will always try to ask, “what do you recommend?” (or more simply, “why?”) when receiving ideas / notes / feedback to ensure I’m capturing the full thought, and that one is actually there. I want to be sure I get an entire notion or idea - not just cut it off and only take a potentially negative criticism. If a PM in your organization is blindly accepting things like, “this doesn’t work” or “I don’t like this,” they aren’t doing their job.
They need to dig deeper to get the entire request. This is why it’s important people interacting on the front lines (with real users) are trained to inquire and gather that feedback properly. Many times, users will just write a 1/2 finished idea without even realizing it. They may written at a time of frustration or being super happy while using the product; but in many cases they will leave off the “why?”
The “why?” is the most crucial part, because it’s what tells product manager’s what’s actually important to the user giving you the request. If that’s not there, it’s all very binary - a thumb’s up or down would suffice.
This doesn’t just go for product feedback, but delivering feedback in general; especially when managing others. One of the best lessons to help someone that may be more junior (or, depending on how you look at things - less jaded) learn is how to deliver proper feedback. Whether that’s a product idea, making a PowerPoint deck look better, etc… The earlier people get comfortable with the practice of actually explaining why they are saying something, the better. But, I digress.
Product manager’s should always be willing to listen to feedback. And those that want to provide it to them should make sure they have these critical elements in their delivery. Heck, anyone should feel comfortable even asking their PdM if they are providing their ideas to them in the most effective way possible. That should help clear any confusion / misinterpretations up pretty quickly.
Tony Stark - Best Product Manager Ever?
It’s not a secret I like Iron Man. Even if that now, in the Marvel universe, Tony Stark is a total ass.
With that being said, I think it’s pretty clear that Tony Stark is probably one of the best product managers technology-focused founders ever.
Update: See the comment thread with Bob Corrigan of ack/nak fame for the reason why I changed this. He’s totally right…but Stark still gives one hell of a demo.
Nevermind being a successful founder of a huge military-driven organization, but he’s at the centre of all of the products the organization creates and releases to their customers and the market(s) they occupy. While there are flashes / glances of this throughout the comics, it’s pretty defined within the movie. Obviously, I’m leaving aside how crazy that is for the size of company Stark is supposed to be. But, I digress.
If I could link to specific clips I would. However, I will say this - Stark’s product demo skills are unmatched. Here’s his pitch for a new product (a missile, called the Jericho).
*They* say that the best weapon is the one you never have to fire. I respectfully disagree. I prefer the weapon you only have to fire once. That’s how Dad did it, that’s how America does it… and it’s worked out pretty well so far. I present to you the newest in Stark Industries’ Freedom line. Find an excuse to let one of these off the chain, and I personally guarantee, the bad guys won’t even wanna come out of their caves. Ladies and gentlemen, for your consideration… the Jericho.
Stark is every VC’s dream - he is both business savvy and incredibly technically savvy; not a lot unlike Bill Gates.
I’m sure Stark Industries / Enterprise / International (the name depends on where you are in the comic timeline) has seen some pretty brutal product and technical reviews go down in their halls - with engineers either out of jobs of reduced to tears after having Stark rip apart product specifications they have created.
Of course, I’m stretching things a bit here. What am I really trying to say? That an organization needs a Tony Stark in order to truly succeed? Of course not.
But, he does the same thing as any organization ever has in order to make it truly successful. He didn’t start out with all the crazy technology he currently has and billions of dollars. He started out being obsessed with building the best military weapons possible. That’s the point.
Google did the same thing. They didn’t start with Gmail, and Google Gears, and Picasa, and all that stuff. They started with search. They got that right, have billions of dollars today and a myriad of products. But…guess what?
They picked 1 thing (search), obsessed over it, and got it right. Then they made things more complex, and grew, etc… But they didn’t start out with the goal of being a billion dollar, 16,000 person organization.
Just like Stark obsesses over creating the best weapons technology around, products can only be successful if they start with 1 champion (a founder, CEO, product manager, etc…) and it solves a problem, and it’s obsessed over, ultimately by a group of people working to achieve a common set of goals.
Changing Product Direction
From time to time you need to tweak and change your product’s direction. Essentially, this means that you’ll be trying to work in new things, but also change existing things at the same time.
So, how does this impact the organization? Well, in a lot of ways. Namely, it’s the swapping and changing of certain key features that currently exist and changing those out for new features that better match the revised vision.
Really, this is just all about one thing: alignment. Competitors will come and go, but to make a product truly great, it has to align to your overarching vision - the identification of the solution for how to solve your chosen market problem(s).
Now, in theory this is very simple. Turn some knobs here, change out some labels over there - easy, right? Well, not really.
Successfully shifting a product from one chosen strategy to another (regardless of the size of that shift) can face some adversity within the business. People are inherently adverse to change, which is really where the challenge lies. Everyone will be OK with things until features start to get severely changed (or, in many cases, dropped) because they may feel things are working out really well as they are - or maybe, the didn’t understand that a product strategy shift would mean so many new and/or different things.
So, how can you as a product manager help to ease this transition to the new strategy you may have created (or not)? You kind of can’t - just let it run it’s course. Clear things up for people as much and as regularly as possible.
The other thing you can do is communicate early and often. This is something I struggle with because I always ask myself, “why are people interested in what I have to say?” I am slowly coming to the realization that it has nothing to do wit me as a person, but me as a product owner. If you are in charge of the product (and thus, the associated strategy) that’s changing, everyone will be interested in what you have to say.
Why? Because it directly affects them and what they do.
Make the change - buy in to that change. Execute it. Remove features, change features - sometimes more drastic changes are required. It will make the product feel awkward. It will feel drastic, and in some cases downright wrong. But you have to buy-in and you have to commit. Otherwise, you are failing to properly execute the product strategy you believe will make it successful in the end.
Where Product Mgmt Sits
Product management has to report to the CEO. This is really not something that is up for debate.
There is a lot of data suggesting this is not presently the case for many organizations, especially in tech - and that has to change.
In order to be successful, product managers require a lot of input and clout over most of the cross-functional teams within an organization. Without the support of the CEO, it may be nearly impossible for the PM to strike a balance between marketing, sales, dev, etc… If the PM reports to marketing, that leader (vp / director marketing) will have a tendency to ensure all marketing priorities are put first. If the PM reports to development, same drill - what the dev manager (CTO / vp, eng or whatever) feels is important is what will be worked on.
Don’t even get me started on the prospect of product reporting in to sales.
Product management has to be able to move laterally (and actually make decisions) in order to ensure the best interest of the users / customers / market are at heart. If this can’t be done, the product will veer in one direction or another; and that direction may not have what’s best for the market as a clear intention.
I have had conversations with several colleagues in the space (Jeff Lash, Saeed Kahn, Scott Sehlhorst, etc…) regarding product management not being a “standard” role within an organization. In fact, I’d love to pose the question to VCs (say, Fred Wilson, Rick Segal, and Brad Feld). When you invest in an organization, how important is having a product manager on the management team?
Do you explicitly look for a director / vp of product management just as you would a vp, sales or vp, engineering? Maybe even a vp, marketing? Is hiring one a key action item for any CEO you are trusting with your investment? If not, how come?
A long while back I spoke with a recruiting manager for a very large social networking organization in the Bay area. He informed me that they were “incubating” product management in development, and the CEO “may decide” at a later time product should have a seat at “the executive table.”
Wow. That’s a whole lot of words telling me potentially a couple of things: 1) development is driving all product, which tends to be a common setup. And it’s not usually the best thing in the world. But then again, I’m heavily biased. 2) the CEO thinks they are doing a fine job and don’t want anyone challenging their decisions, execution, etc….
In my opinion, you need product management in the organization, and a PM lead that reports to the CEO and has management-level “authority” (whatever that means to you). Otherwise, the product has a strong chance of becoming heavily weighted or biased towards the group that’s charged with running it - unless there is constant intervention by the CEO.
Personally, I think a start to this is to get product management to be an actual subject / role / element taught to business students in MBA programs. Finance is. Marketing is. Sales, strategy, “organizational behavior,” etc…. Why not product mgmt?
Maybe I’m just too heavily rooted in software - it could be the role isn’t all I’m cracking it up to be in other industries.
Don’t Get Discouraged
When you are in the thick of things, it’s easy to lose sight of the bigger picture. That picture may be 1 month, 3 months, or 6 months (plus!) away, but people (myself included) can get wrapped up in not being perfect, seemingly not doing enough, or thinking you are doing things wrong.
You can’t get worried. Well, you can - if you don’t have certain key things in place.
It’s easy to get all down and razzled if you see constant new “competition” popping up all over the place every week, or other products getting press yours isn’t. Quite frankly, it’s just not worth it. Take it as inspiration, learn what you can from it, and press on.
Remember - it comes down to a couple of things. Are you solving a problem people have, and does your product add some good value while solving it? If everything from the top-down (I’m not talking organizationally, really) is aligned, that means you have placed your bets and can just worry about execution.
It’s all about placing a bet and executing. “Wow” features and “silver bullets” are not what you rely on to build successful products. It’s all in the fundamentals. Those things may come along, or maybe you are developing one without even realizing it - but you can’t hold things up waiting for those ideas to come along.
You need to just do a few things really well. In fact, things I’ve already mentioned:
- Ensure you are solving a problem
- Align things form top to bottom
- Execute — quickly and with confidence
This “top-down” stuff I speak of is from the vision / problem identification, to the roadmap, to the requirements, to each release being pushed out the door. There are a few strategies that go into shipping a product which I may detail in other posts (for example, is this product brand new? does it already exist? at what stage of the lifecycle is it?), but for now take solace in having a clear vision to which all decisions are baselined.
If you are focused on something (almost obsessively so) you are doing everything right. Of course the organization could fail - but all you can do is pick a problem and go after it as hard as you can. You can’t solve all of the World’s problems by building 15-20 products at once.
Remember — it’s all about being good enough. Well, in most cases. Tony Stark may have a problem doing that, but start-ups building Web applications should not.
