'Building great things' state of mind

When talking about 'building stuff' you may associate this concept with architecture, design or engineering. The way humans have diversified the art of 'building stuff' through history is incredible. We, humans, are good at inventing and building (and at times also destroying) stuff. There are million of examples of great ideas and great things that we have been able to invent and bring to life creating new ways of living and thinking. Let's just take the example of the Roman civilisation (including here both the Republic and the Empire) which lasted approximately 2000 years. Aside Roman's political acumen for domination and conquest, their long lasting empire stands on a very basic principle: a standardised building framework continuously improved.

Some one could argue that Roman emperors were just self centred megalomaniacs. Not forgiving the atrocities and blood shed which enabled the massive growth of the Empire, I think its greatness resides however in the way Romans democratised commodities, trade and communications among populations whilst creating a strong cultural and political identity and sense of belonging. They executed such a grandiose vision in a very systematic, well planned and scalable way.

As soon as new villages, cities, regions and countries were acquired a whole new set of rules, infrastructures, administrations and culture were imposed to the subdued populations. Thanks to clever architects engineers and sadly also military power and slavery, all of that was then executed.

New aqueducts and sewers were built all across the Empire to provide fresh safe water to the 'uncivilised' as well as public baths to ensure people were cleaned and less likely to catch and spread diseases. More and more roads were created to connect every single province added to the map to the nearer centre of political and military power enabling an unprecedented network of global trading and communication in human history. Millions of citizens were using the same coin, following the same system of laws and sharing similar ways of living. As a Roman you were able to find yourself at home anywhere across almost one million square meters which is how the Roman Empire measured at its peak (117 AD).

Above the Tabula Peutingeriana (Latin for "The Peutinger Map"), an illustrated itinerarium (road map) showing the cursus publicus, the road network in the Roman Empire (4th/5th cent.).

Why the Roman Empire lasted so long? Here’s one strong reason: unparalleled infrastructure. The Romans managed to build and connect a network of towns, cities, roads and waterways that were never before joined in such a powerful way.

This infrastructure joined together architecture, agriculture, the superhighway of the Mediterranean Sea, Europe, the Middle East, and North Africa. It essentially proved and promoted globalization which affected and permanently transformed the Western world.

?Why am I talking about the Romans so much? Because I think product managers should be a bit like the Romans, aspirational in establishing a new way of thinking and living through a solid building framework. As a product manager you are there to solve a problem which needs to be translated into an opportunity (creativity needs boundaries) and cleverly and timely exploited. Coming up with a grand, visionary (crazy?) idea is the starting point though. Second step is to identify the main pillars, the building blocks of the product strategy which will provide foundational ground to the future development and go to market phases. Then along with your team you will identify milestones and processes translating them into product definition with high level elements of success and highways to achieve it.

To go back to the Roman example, their strategy was to target and map out those territories around the Mediterranean strategic for trading and natural resources and exploiting the complex network of hundreds of troops, slaves, civilians lined up at strategic geolocations across Europe, Nord Africa and the Middle East working under clearly delegated administrations. We can imagine their logistics and operations as user flows designed to produce seamless navigation and communication among territories and people. Finally urbanistic, transportation and architecture. This represents in my opinion the strategic, 'future thinking' element of product management.

No one really talks about product manager as people building stuff. Arguably they don't build anything themselves and that's why sometimes their role is not fully understood or recognised as valuable. However they have a very important role (when fulfilled): help realising ideas and making them work both from a business as well as an user centric perspective (hitting the sweet spot).

What if 'building stuff' was just a mind set, a way of translating big ideas into smaller conceptual building blocks dynamically linked together to create something much bigger?

I will use now another metaphor to look at a the work of product managers from another angle which is still very important. I'm talking about the more pragmatic side (the 'present and past thinking' aspect of being a product manager > task-oriented and fact based as well as time conscious and clever decision making).

Lets assume that a cook can be seen also as someone who 'builds stuff'. Imagine the Head Chef Patisserie of a famous cake shop who has just finished to discuss with a groom-and-bride-to-be, all the details (and price) of their wedding cake. They expressed their wish to have a rich and sumptuous three tiered chocolate and raspberry wedding cake for hundred and fifty people to be ready in one month. They are happy to spend what agreed (which is quite a lot) as long as the end product is delicious and has a 'wow factor' which entails a certain level of experimentation for the team to try new things.

The head Chef will help making a cake which is both creative and disruptive but also tastes great and is delivered on time. Pushing boundaries and have the team working on things they are not very familiar with and making sure it all works and meets the deadline is tricky.

Everything starts with an idea (as most things). But its execution is key. The Head Chef will brainstorm with his team of pastry chefs starting from the basic requirements to get to the mature and final cake idea, design and plan of action. The key thing will be to make something of great quality, adhering in a way to the clients' initial requirements, deliver it on time, within the couple's budget AND with a solid profit margin for the cake shop. The cherry on the cake (apologies I've probably increased you blood sugar levels already) will consists in achieving that 'wow factor' that will have all the hundred and fifty guests talking about it for weeks and maybe getting more sales in as a branding awareness exercise. The price at stake is high.

The nitty gritty of the delivery will have to be worked out in advance. The team will have to list out all the ingredients. Figure out quantities based on the number of mouths to feed. Then comes the planning of the whole process itself and the definition of individual tasks for each one in the team to perform. They will estimate time and effort to do it (which will include also the search and purchase of all the ingredients and the tools needed) and then a final execution plan is drown.

Time to start the making. There is only one 'minor' detail. What if after buying all the ingredients, making and baking all the six cake layers, preparing cream and fruit jam, then assembling it all together and cote it with the chocolate ganache and decorations; the lovely couple and their hundred and fifty guests won't like it? That would be a disaster!

Eureka! The Head Chef has an idea. How about making a mini version of the big three tiered chocolate and raspberry wedding cake? A cupcake (MVP) version of it and have the couple coming to taste it so that the team can use their early feedback to refine it, make a slightly bigger cake until the final three layers rich cake is finalised? That way they will experiment on the end user their idea first making sure that the end product will meet the couple's taste and imagination and avoid a lot of wastage and embarrassment. You can't go wrong.

What if I say that a good product manager is a bit like a chef making a cake or an architect planning and driving a building execution?

As product people we like to talk about building stuff, right? We often refer to building blocks and scalability as pivotal element for success when trying to shape products of excellent quality and ship them to market at the speed of light whilst ensuring they are profitable. Or else when taking executive decisions we often need to use measurements to guide our validation processes as well as defining the 'perfect' experience and user flows when talking about the end user who is going hopefully, to enjoy the product. These are all concepts that people with a professional title including 'architect', 'designer' or 'engineer' can relate to and possibly execute much better when is about a 'physical build'. And in that category I still put software as a physical product. These (beautiful) physical things are, like great buildings, road systems, aqueducts, super cars, big wedding cakes the result of loving craftsmanship and attention to details and attentive process control.

The combination of a futuristic vision like Romans but at the same time pragmatism and business focus like our Head Chef, are key. We ultimately want to 'build stuff' that people love and are inspired by getting early feedback to be able to refine it. We should aspire to promote new and better ways of living, trying to remove frictions, make people happier...like architects imagining and building spaces and ecosystems where people can get lost and feel special.

I will leave you with a couple of quotes which I relate to. Interestingly enough they belong to two of the biggest architects of our times (the second is one of my personal favourite). Maybe 'building great things' isn't just domain of visionary emperors, architects or engineers. Maybe it is just a a state of mind.

As an architect you design for the present with an awareness of the past for a future which is essentially unknown. Norman Foster

I think there should be no end to experimentation. Zaha Hadid

Thanks for reading,

Alessia