The 58th Edition - On Balancing Short-term and Long-term Product Bets, Reinventing Strategy in a Downturn, and Maximizing Team Performance Through Async Decision Making

Did you know that recounting embarrassing stories increases creativity?

Stable Diffusion: “A group of superhero colleagues in capes and masks working together to solve a problem, in the style of Batman the Animated Series.” (negative prompt: faces, hands)

Turns out that "fun" icebreakers work: If everyone shares their favorite TikTok or short video on Zoom, it builds trust. Singing brings people together. When a group tells an embarrassing story, it makes them more creative. After 45 minutes of playing video games, the next day's team performance was 20% better. (source)

📚 Balancing Short-term and Long-term Product Bets

I wrote about strategies for balancing short-term and long-term bets recently 🧵

George from 🕹prodmgmt.world @nurijanian

Balancing Short-Term and Long-Term Goals as a Product Manager: A 3-Part Guide To Getting The Buckets of Investment Right

As I did my normal research, this article from DoubleLoop popped up in my feed.

I love the contrarian take.

(I’ve shared about DoubleLoop before in the 34th Edition of this newsletter.)

“I’m shocked by how many product folks insist that the impact of product development cannot be measured. Strong-willed founders or executives tend to push through their UX intuitions without interest in data-based evidence.”

I find the idea that somehow all metrics at the org could be inspected for correlations almost fantastical. It’s amazing if it can be done. To a former analyst like me, this feels so tantalising: to know how the mechanism actually works.

Even if this article won’t solve your problem immediately, hopefully it’ll get you to change your mind on the immeasurability of product development.

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👀 Reinventing Strategy in a Downturn

Let’s switch it up and look to the future.

Andrew Chen and Brian Balfour of Reforge discuss the importance of adapting and reinventing growth strategies in the current tech market.

They outline four key points:

1. Accepting that the current market is the new normal

2. Shifting focus to retention and customer loyalty

3. Prioritizing agile experimentation and quick iteration

4. Reevaluating the role of data and analytics in decision-making.

Here’s how leaders should think about it:

• What are the 80/20 initiatives to drive retention? Invest in stability, bolster customer support, hire UX folks, and focus on deepening the core value.

• Iterate small. No big multi-year projects. This is where data is your friend. Get analysts to look at the customer base from multiple angles. Don’t get carried away with your hypotheses so they become untestable.

✍️ Remember

“Painful, frequent and time consuming are the most lucrative type of customer problems worth solving.”

Hiten Shah

“The decision training espoused by ‘Superforecasting’ is better suited for investors; the decision training used by the Marines is better suited for operators.”

Cedric Chin

🧠 Consider

Making Great Decisions Async: An ode to async decision making. 9/10 you should do this, not set up a meeting.

Peter Yang @petergyang

How to make great decisions async and save yourself and your team from drowning in a calendar like this:

Leadership and Product Team Should Negotiate Outcomes. Quick heuristic for stages and modes of engagement between leadership and the product team:

Teresa Torres @ttorres

"Outcomes should be set by a two-way negotiation between leadership and the product team." - @ttorres bit.ly/2Wu8JBj #prodmgmt #ux

Product Books for Sales People. Sales Books for Product People: I wish sales people would read these books. Then Jason Knight (One Knight in Product) responded with his list of Sales books for Product people!

George from 🕹prodmgmt.world @nurijanian

Product Books I Wish Sales People Would Read: - Demand Side Sales - Escaping the Build Trap - Continuous Discovery Habits - What's Your Problem? - The Pyramid Principle Anything else?

Jason Knight @onejasonknight

@nurijanian @bond_aj I would also like product people to read sales books! - The Challenger Sale - The JOLT effect - The Challenger Customer - Spin Selling - To Sell is Human Product teams need to understand how their products get sold and the motivations of salespeople

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Who's George?

It’s me

I’m an underdog product manager.

Product management in New Zealand (where I live) is still a relatively immature discipline. I also came into it late via data science and UX. I may be older than others, but I often feel like a rookie.

To become better at my craft, I learn and explore new ideas relentlessly.

Then I share high-quality, tried-and-true ideas that can be used right away.

How I can help you:

• If you’re learning about product as a cross-functional leader, I’ve compiled my best actionable finds in prodmgmt.world.

• Get some help via prodmgmt.help. People ask about How to prioritise, How to do market research, how to work with engineers, how to go from a service to a product, how to develop a deep coherent product strategy, what books to read and courses to take on product topics & design systems product management.

See you next week.

— George.