18 atomic tips any manager can use, starting today. “We have a real business to run, so we have to be serious. We have to set deadlines. Otherwise, we are a joke. Enough with this agile nonsense.” Ever heard this? I have, many times. But deadlines are 99% fake except for the rare legitimate ones like Black Friday or Tax Day. The unfortunate reality: fake deadlines drive today’s corporations. They are the lie we tell ourselves to seem in control despite our complexity and uncertainty. Complexity integrating new and legacy technologies Uncertainty on how to create true fans of our customers U ..read more

Here’s how not to confuse them for requirements. Output is a fixation we can’t seem to shake in the product space. We continue to think we know the right product to build before we build it. This often shows up in the way we treat user stories as requirements. Even though many product teams and managers think user stories are requirements, they aren’t. The output-oriented among us (I’ve fallen into this trap myself) are notorious for saying: “But the user stories have acceptance criteria to meet the requirements.” “But the user stories must trace back to the user requirements.” “But the user ..read more

Escape the trap of emotion-driven development. The other day, in an attempt to avoid setting a deadline to motivate a team to perform, a manager told me: “None of my peers work this way. I feel like the odd duck.” And just like that, a familiar enemy of change appeared. Emotion. Emotion is to change as oil is to water. They don’t mix. And the result is change that takes longer than it should, or that never happens at all. Emotions can drive teams and managers to avoid change. But to develop great products, we have to embrace change. We must avoid emotion-driven (change-resistant) development ..read more

And what the Texas Two Step has to do with it. If you are a change agent, congratulations on taking the steps to help move people in a better direction. At the same time, because change can suck, I’m sorry. Change is hard for both the change agent and the learner. For the change agent, it’s difficult to figure out how to make change stick. For the learner, it’s challenging to embrace the move to the new and accept the loss of the old. As a change agent myself, I know this (dance) first-hand. I launch into a change with intense passion and drive. Inevitably, I find the learner has not retained ..read more

Overcoming 8 limiting beliefs that separate product teams and customers. You’ve got a problem if you know your backlog better than you know your customer “97% of product teams know their backlog and ticketing system better than their customer.” I posted this statement across Reddit, LinkedIn, and Twitter last week. It sparked a fire of regret from many. Regretting the widespread truth of the statement. Regretting a tool has become their focus, not their customer. Regretting the backlog is as close as they can get to customers. Regretting their team is not seen as capable of customer interac ..read more

That noise you hear is the sound of change. A change can live on or die when friction surfaces. As a manager, when employees complain to you that change hurts, your response is critical. Every change has two tensions. It’s not only: “What should I be doing?” It’s also: “What should I stop doing?” Both together are trouble. Leaving the comfort of the familiar inserts the knife. Adding new, uncertain behavior twists the knife. Doing both at the same time feels like you are bleeding out. And as a manager, your response to the resulting noise (wailing) is a crucial moment of truth. You can continu ..read more

Plus, the one aspect you don’t want to overlook. I’ve seen my share of change efforts miss the mark.  Miss by solving a problem that nobody wants to solve. Miss by not bridging the capability gap. Miss by not making change safe. This is not a mix that works.  But some get the recipe right. They embrace improvement as the norm. They skill up to meet the change. They remove barriers to trying new things.  Smooth change happens with these ingredients (and roughly or not at all if any are missing). I coach product teams to maximize outcomes with less effort while respecting peop ..read more

Plus, my go-to response for any stakeholder ask. Stakeholder pressure is at the root of many false promises based on hope. Promises to deliver all ideas by a date. Promises to stay in budget and have a windfall return on investment. Promises to do more, do it faster, and do it all now. Why are these promises empty? They are made based on the faulty premise of “we know” rather than “we don’t know.” And they also assume the fiction of infinite capacity. These are both bad assumptions in the uncertain, complex world of product development. Hope is not a strategy with product. Promises made with ..read more

Here are my 6 dead-simple ways to amplify them. Product teams need quiet people. Why? Processing complex information requires space to think. Connecting patterns demands keen observation. Formulating a unique perspective takes time for rumination. And your less vocal teammates are wired for this. Quiet people can also make you think. Their silence makes room for other voices, perspectives, and ideas to take shape. But when they do speak, even their whisper can take the air out of the room. What they say is unique, thoughtful, and well-formed. But if you aren’t careful, you can silence these ..read more

Obstacles define their path to success. “But we finished our part, so we should get credit.” I hear statements such as this from product teams who are stuck. Stuck delivering task after task with no clear goal. Stuck trying to stay busy only on things they can control. Stuck in a system they feel can’t be changed. Stuck in a narrow lane of specialty. They have not yet made the shift to becoming unstoppable. Do these blockers sound familiar to your team? I suspect they do, as nine times out of ten, I find teams in these rough waters, treading fast to stay afloat. They are in a task factory ..read more