Product Managers: Look out for your well-being too

It’s easy to focus on the team and the product, but what about you.

Happy World Product day! An awesome day to celebrate all the awesome product people out there, taking one for the team; daily, weekly, monthly, even hourly and of course, by the minute.

For the last World Product Day, I took part in a panel discussing Marc Abraham’s Managing Product = Managing Tension — an awesome session, and an awesome book. At that time, I was very much an individual contributor (IC), getting ready to take on my first hire. I’ve spent the last 18 months building a product function in advanced analytics & data science here at Virgin Media O2 from zero to one. We’ve grown at an exponential rate, and have a bunch of high-performing data products in the wild, and a brilliant team around us.

The job of a product manager isn’t easy, and it’s not just something you can roll into. In my opinion, it takes a whole bunch of skills, and often, those with varying experience make the best PMs. Sometimes you hear super random career paths, and on the other hand, ones that make sense, like starting out in engineering. I’d put my money on dinner table chat being A+ always with PMs.

In a recent post I talked about slowing down to speed up and since then I’ve been thinking a lot about this in the context of being a product manager. I hope this post isn’t just for my fellow PMs out there, but for anyone building products whether you’re involved as an engineer, a data scientist, a delivery manager, or even a stakeholder.

Everyday you’re pushing to make your product better than yesterday. Whilst you and the team are ultra-focused, there’s noise from many directions, and the pressures on you, especially you as the PM. Whether it’s from sales, marketing, senior management, or those consuming your product as an enabler to make their experiences better for customers — this is tough, and you’re constantly juggling. You’re juggling everyone’s demands, team frustrations, are we going in the right direction? what should we stop doing? how do I make friends with this person? how should I communicate? is the team okay? The list goes on.

And this, well this sums product management up perfectly, as always, sound words from Shreyas Doshi .

In this job it's like an emotional rollercoaster, things are going right and it's the best time, and when things start to go south, it's all on the product people. Think of a technical issue, you can't directly make the fix, you protect the team and take the heat. I know I've felt this, and many others have too. So we need to lean into our friends, peers and support networks, and be kind to our mind!

Be kind: take the?leave!

Evey year you’ll get your annual leave, and you either plan the next 12 months deciding where you’ll spend most of those days, or you plan as you go; maybe in quarters or maybe 6 months in, thinking “oh my, I best use this leave”.

I’ve never been a plan leave for the next 12 months kind of person. I’ve certainly fallen into the “what the am I going to do and when do I take all this leave”, which, in the past, has caused me to go for the first half the year with little time off, and having to carry days into the next year. It’s simply not good enough. And in this space, you’ve got to be kind to your mind, otherwise things can consume you.

This year I’ve tried to think more broadly, in quarters and make sure I take leave regularly. Wow, I sound like I’m making OKRs for my time off. I’m not. I mean, I’m sure I could, and I’m pretty sure there’s PMs out there that do this.

Objective: Achieve 100% of annual leave this year.

• Key Result: 0 days left to carry into 2023
• Key Result: 0% time spent checking Slack when on leave
• Key Result: 50% of leave taken by June

As product teams, we’ve constantly got our eyes on the thing(s), and the next thing(s). We’re running to the finish, we finish, and we run again. It’s like a hamster wheel. This constant running is not sustainable for anyone. That’s as individuals and teams. Individuals get tired. Teams get tired. Teams need time to take stock and reflect on what was achieved, what next and how we constantly improve. I’ve not seen any great examples of teams taking their time as seriously as we do as individuals (and that can be questioned too).

Plan leave as individuals

The team won’t stop when you go get on that airplane and apply your factor 50. Sure they’ll notice you’re gone, and if you’re doing a great job, they’ll see how much you make their lives easier, work more fun and guide them. Absence really does make the heart grow fonder. As someone leading the team, promote taking regular leave. People managers should be doing this, but as a PM you’ve got their well-being at the heart, so push this, but don’t forget about yourself!

It’s also important to factor leave into your teams ability to deliver. This is where your delivery friend comes in. Simple, but using the calendar in Confluence to capture the product teams leave is helpful, and regularly reviewing what’s coming up, and not just applying the estimates (you probably doubled), but also taking leave into account. Again, your delivery friend here is everything.

Plan breaks as a?team

We do some pretty classic stuff in many product teams like, no meetings on certain days. Estimating, planning etc. at certain points, but making time to slow down, who is doing that really well? Team socials help, planning in person, having non-work chats etc, but actually taking a good chunk of time to reset and go again, is tough. If you cracked this, please share ??

As a PM, you’re the one that’s watching out for everyone, and the most likely to be like, “we need some fun, I’ll go and arrange it”. My team of PMs have certainly become social secretaries, and there’s a bit of a thing, where we’re trialing monthly days together as product teams, and quarterly team time, away from the work. This summer features a sports afternoon, and a hike somewhere ?

People will push you for what they?want

Someone will always push you, your product teams and sometimes individuals in your teams through various channels. Take a moment to understand their situation and why they’re asking for that thing, or in cases, demanding a thing. Always listen, but be prepared to say no, or not right now, but we’ll assess it later on as right now this [other thing] is where we need to focus because of [reason].

I personally find it super helpful, and therapeutic to write things down, explaining the context and rationale in a document. This is a skill I love to see in PMs, I think it enforces curiosity, the ability to surface a problem and explore it, and the ability to devote time in educating others, taking them on a journey. These skills are invaluable in many roles when building a product, but for me, a blessing in a PM.

People will say you didn’t communicate enough

You’re usually the person that’s waving the flag. It can be exhausting, but it’s important and to take some of the burden, make friends with your key stakeholders, and influencers around you. Where you can, over communicate inside and outside your product teams. If people choose to I ignore you, let them, keep writing those updates in Slack. Send those emails ??. Go share more context at others functional teams meeting.

You will take it on to protect the?team

Picture this, something isn’t going to plan, and classic PM syndrome, you’re taking it all on your shoulders. What could we do differently? How do I protect to team? Did I miss something?

You’re standing in the coalface. Be kind to yourself. A problem shared is a problem halved. Make sure you talk about your frustrations to others. Fortunately, I’ve got people inside and outside I can talk to. This is a massive help, and these are people that get it. Like, of course talk to your girlfriends, parents etc, but a lot of the time you need someone in a similar context to feel your vibe, and either make you laugh with their similar story, or to be the person to listen.

You should always be?human

Not related to my days as a PM, but last week, I spent some time volunteering with a bunch of 17 year olds taking part in a career day that their school runs every year. At the end of the day they pitched their ideas, and the ones that nailed storytelling and had human in there, they won. They won the cheers from their peers, and teachers and us as mentors that day. Always be human. In the corporate world especially, people can become robotic and transactional, very boring, and a challenge to really collaborate with and build brilliant products.

You will feel lonely at?times

Your functional team, your leader, your product team are all in it with you. Your delivery manager is your partner in crime. Don’t forget it. They need to feel what you feel, and help unblock, and mange expectations. This isn’t a journey to go on alone. Outside of your delivery friends, make sure you interact with others outside your product teams, and stakeholder groups, and not for “work” chats. Given remote is less chats in the kitchen, less walks to get coffee together — replace this with random chats with your wider teams. Get to know others. If your team is anything like ours, you’ll have super interesting chat. I found out someone did ballroom dancing that I did NOT expect. Someone else grew up in Columbia during the Escobar happenings. And someone else has Che Le Luna as their alarm tone (my little ones favourite song a few weeks ago ??).

Remember why you do this job but also slow down, be kind to your mind — it’s not just about everyone else, you’re human too.

It’s a tough gig, rewarding as hell, but not for the faint hearted. I never thought I’d reference Lion King, but going back to 1994 and a brilliant film (the original), as Scar sang:

But you’ll be rewarded… Be prepared! — *don’t be like Scar though.

Takeaways

• Be kind: take the leave! — Regular annual leave over stints of panic, feeling guilty leaving the team
• Plan leave as individuals — be mindful of one another, if someone hasn’t been taking leave, promote it.
• Plan breaks as a team — socials are great, planning is good, but what about proper breaks, like a week? Who does this well?
• People will push you for what they want — someone is always going to pressure you, don’t just say, write
• People will say you didn’t communicate enough — away’s go for over communicating, and promote that in other’s in the team
• You will take it on to protect the team — don’t forget WE make this product, and delivery, they are there too
• You should always be human — don’t take yourself too seriously,
• You will feel lonely at times — like Escobar in that gif. It’s normal, but make sure you speak up and have those groups to listen ??

Further reading, watching, listening

I talked about the journey of a PM, a journey that sticks with me is Shreyas Doshi just recently on Lenny’s podcast. Content from Lenny Rachitsky is not to be missed if you’re a PM or thinking are moving into product: podcast and newsletter . Lenny’s podcast also has an awesome episode with Merci Victoria Grace , someone that helped me early on take tactical empathy to the next level.

Final thing, recently a friend/fellow PM sent me this and I had all the feels…