What do you do if your goals as an executive in Product Management seem unattainable?

When executive goals in Product Management seem unattainable, it's essential to take a step back and reassess the water. Start by breaking down the goals into smaller, more manageable tasks. Identify any obstacles or challenges that may be hindering progress and develop strategies to overcome them. Seek input from team members and stakeholders to gain additional perspectives and insights. Stay adaptable and open to adjusting goals or timelines as needed. By taking proactive steps and maintaining a positive mindset, you can work towards achieving your goals, even when they initially seem out of reach.

Reevaluate goals to understand challenges. Determine if goals are too ambitious or relevant. Consider adjusting goals or strategies if necessary. Ensure goals adhere to SMART criteria.

It depends on who's setting your goals, how you're motivated by goals and who those goals affect. If you're comfortable setting your own hard-to-reach goals because that's how you motivate yourself - go for it and get as close as you can. Even if you only get 85% of the way there, it will probably be more than a conservative goal would have been. Some people are demotivated by stretch goals - if they don't see themselves achieving it, they think, why bother making the effort in the first place? If someone else is setting you unreasonably hard goals, explain why, using evidence where possible. Alternatively, acknowledge the goals are important, and set out what additional help / resource you would need to achieve them as asked.

It's always good to go back to customer and conduct reality check wrt competition. While customer expectations might be very high, it's better to assess whether it's possible to achieve them in reality.

An important consideration when reassessing your goals is to evaluate the state of performance - how much runway do you have to achieve the goal. If the goal seems far-fetched, it is essential to evaluate what can be achieved by end of the milestone set. As a product manager, you should evaluate why the goals can’t be achieved by conducting a root cause analysis. For example if it is due to engineering constraints, then resolution can be achieved with engineering team on an executive level. Speak to your product leaders once you have a full picture of the constraints you are facing to achieve the goals before bringing the news to the stakeholders.

Seek feedback from your team to gain insights. Encourage open communication. Foster an environment where ideas are welcomed. Collaborate to identify innovative solutions.

Ask questions and really listen to the answer. Consider using "the 5 whys" to help get to root cause quickly. Be sure to seek feedback both individually in addition to team settings. No matter how comfortable a team is with one-another, there's usually something meaningful that people don't want to mention 'in front of everyone'

Envolver todas as partes interessadas, incluindo clientes, equipe interna, líderes da empresa e outros stakeholders, pode fornecer insights valiosos sobre os desafios enfrentados e possíveis solu??es. O feedback pode ajudar a identificar áreas de melhoria, ajustar estratégias e definir prioridades de forma mais eficaz.

Unattainable product goals as an executive? Don't go it alone! Seek feedback. Talk to your team, stakeholders, and industry experts. Their insights can expose roadblocks and hidden challenges in your goals, allowing you to refine them for greater achievability and ensure your team is set up for success.

In the face of seemingly insurmountable goals as an executive in Product Management, actively seeking feedback from your team is paramount. Their perspectives offer valuable insights and potential solutions, shedding light on overlooked opportunities and innovative approaches. Foster an environment conducive to open communication, where every team member feels empowered to contribute their thoughts and ideas. Through this collaborative process, you can uncover new pathways to realizing objectives that initially appeared unattainable, driving progress and success.

Prioritize tasks to bring focus. Identify critical aspects of your strategy. Concentrate resources on key areas. Make tough decisions if needed. Address important tasks first to build momentum.

In Product management, prioritizing tasks is essential for clarity and focus. By identifying the most critical aspects of your product strategy and directing resources accordingly, you can make progress despite challenges. This may require difficult decisions, such as delaying or reducing less crucial projects. Effective prioritization ensures that vital tasks receive attention first, fostering momentum and laying the groundwork for addressing larger objectives with purpose and efficiency.

Prioritizing tasks as a product manager helps in achieving seemingly unattainable goals by focusing efforts on the most impactful and feasible activities first. By identifying high-value tasks and addressing them systematically, you can make progress towards larger objectives even when faced with constraints or challenges. Additionally, prioritization helps in allocating resources effectively, optimizing time and energy towards tasks that will yield the greatest results, thereby increasing the likelihood of success even with ambitious goals.

Absolutely prioritize! Try not to throttle your team, though. Changing priorities too frequently can hinder progress. Using a scrum/sprint process can help mitigate the negative impacts of changing priorities.

Goals are typically outcome statements, while objectives are very precise, time-based, and measurable actions that support the completion of goals. Goals and objectives are an essential element in planning and are a key referent point in many aspects of organizing, leading, and controlling. Broadly speaking, within the P-O-L-C framework, goals and objectives serve to (1) gauge and report performance, (2) improve performance, (3) align effort and, (4) manage accountabilities.

As per my experience, this happens when you have too many things on the plate. Initial steps should be to reasses the goals, seek clarity,priorities them and reorganise again.

Flexibility is essential in product management but in most cases, you want to pivot, not swing the pendulum. React to the market and changes, but don't chase every shiny object. If you've done your research and know your customers/users, then pursue what matters to them with a vengeance.

Agile methodologies were invented for rapid changes and adapting to customer and market expectations. As a product manager we should focus on having strong adaptable teams that can work with the changes and uncertainty

Esteja preparado para se adaptar e ajustar as estratégias conforme necessário à medida que novas informa??es e circunstancias surgem. Manter-se flexível e aberto a mudan?as é essencial para lidar com desafios e obstáculos imprevistos que possam surgir ao longo do caminho.

Reassess goals to identify unrealistic targets, and seek feedback to expose hidden challenges. Prioritize ruthlessly, focusing on high-impact features. Remember, markets and user needs can shift – be ready to adapt your roadmap based on new information. This agility ensures your goals stay relevant and achievable in a dynamic landscape.

Don't underestimate the value of celebrating your team. Go out of your way to thank and congratulate their hard work, tenacity, and yes, results. Failures are an opportunity to learn, but also an opportunity to celebrate your team's effort. Sometimes you can do everything right and it just doesn't work - be sensitive to your team in these moments and celebrate the learning.

This approach allows for quicker feedback, iteration, and adaptation based on user needs or market changes. It also helps in maintaining momentum and motivation within the team while minimizing risks associated with large-scale changes or projects.

If the goal seems unattainable- try to break it down to daily, or even hourly actions that, based on history data, can lead to achieving the goal in the long run.

Celebrate small wins and milestones to maintain momentum and morale. Recognize and reward achievements, both individual and team-based, to reinforce positive behaviors and motivate continued progress.

Em vez de tentar alcan?ar todos os objetivos de uma só vez, adote uma abordagem de progresso incremental. Divida os objetivos em etapas menores e mais gerenciáveis e concentre-se em fazer progressos consistentes ao longo do tempo. Isso pode ajudar a manter a motiva??o da equipe e a demonstrar progresso tangível, mesmo que os objetivos finais ainda n?o tenham sido alcan?ados.

For instance, in a business with several divisions, you can imagine that managers and employees may behave differently if their compensation and promotion are tied to overall company performance, the performance of their division, or some combination of the two.

A learning culture prioritizes continuous learning and development at all levels of the organization. It encourages employees to seek out new knowledge, skills, and experiences to enhance their performance and contribute to the organization's success. In a learning culture, mistakes are viewed as opportunities for growth, and experimentation is encouraged. This fosters a dynamic and forward-thinking environment where individuals are empowered to take risks, explore new ideas, and adapt to change. Growth mindset over fixed mindset.

Foster a learning culture within your team and organization. Encourage continuous learning, experimentation, and knowledge sharing to drive innovation and overcome challenges more effectively.

Its very significant to set realistic goals. You cannot set random and extreme goals without a clear path towards. Set up smaller/simpler goals that can be achieved. This also develops a discipline to chase them and prioritise them. Seek mentorship that will also help you tweak your goals and define your path towards them.

Most of Objectives are put to be underachieved! But it is okay. As a product manager, study those objectives carefully, and do your homework of “wanting to achieve them”. Then come up with plan on how to achieve them really by breaking the objectives into smaller tasks and guided actions. At the end, state your requirements to this plan and ask for whatever you need to make this plan happen. State your analyses, challenges, asks, and timelines. So that the management will consider your asks the same way they consider your roadmap. But it requires a long experience in that field and company to understand the challenges, asks and how to address them.

Setting goals is always a very important phase of planning and many set them higher to motivate themselves or overestimating the forecast for various reasons. I think setting reasonable goals is important. If it seems during the year impossible to reach them, you could evaluate the priority and contribution to the budget of the various ongoing projects and take advantage of eliminating the blocked ones, freeing up resources for those that need them. In the meantime, put strong efforts in increasing your business on alternative customers/ideas/services. Everything takes its time, but you should try to give the right priority and speed to your projects and customer feedback, even if sometimes this could be very hard and not depending on you

Most of Objectives are put to be underachieved! But it is okay. As a product manager, study those objectives carefully, and do your homework of “wanting to achieve them”. Then come up with plan on how to achieve them really by breaking the objectives into smaller tasks and guided actions. At the end, state your requirements to this plan and ask for whatever you need to make this plan happen. State your analyses, challenges, asks, and timelines. So that the management will consider your asks the same way they consider your asks. But it requires a long experience in that field and company to understand the challenges, asks and how to address them.

Communicate Effectively: Clearly communicate the goals, challenges, and progress to relevant stakeholders, including senior leadership, team members, and external partners. Transparent communication fosters alignment, accountability, and support. Stay Flexible: Remain flexible and adaptable in your approach to goal attainment. Be open to adjusting strategies or timelines as needed based on evolving circumstances, feedback, and lessons learned.