#13: the beauty of the changing minds
This week’s edition is an ode to the mind’s ability to change and to the product manager’s ability to adapt when:
We've all heard it at some point in our careers or lives: “We’ve always done it this way,” “That’s how we do it here,” or “This is what we agreed on three years ago.” These statements are anchors to past practices, keeping us moored to traditions and preventing us from growing outside of our comfort zone.
Our ability to be flexible and to pivot at the right times for the right reasons is what’s at the core of pretty much every development framework out there. Be it Agile, Lean, Scrum, or any other methodology, they all thrive on adaptability and iterative learning. Why? Because empirical learning nurtures growth and efficiency.
This is an ode to the human’s ability to adapt, change, and improve.?
Changing the status quo
Be brave to challenge assumptions of superiority.
The majority of top-performing software products achieved their success by challenging the perception of what users needed and what mattered to them. Not what the others were doing.
When everyone is zigging, sometimes you need to zag.?
I personally love the “jobs-to-be-done” framework when innovating products. I’ve recently faced that in one of my projects: where all competitors were heading in one direction, we’ve interviewed a large number of customers to figure out what they actually wanted help with.?
Changing beliefs
Be brave to say I was wrong.
"Throwing more developers at a lagging project will expedite it," or "Modifying a feature now will completely disrupt the entire project."
Indeed, blindly increasing the team size or making changes without considering potential repercussions can be frankly stupid. But there's another facet to this tendency of viewing our projects with an overly optimistic lens and thinking that just this final stretch will get us ahead of everyone else.
In my experience, the most rose-colored glasses are often donned by product managers who are deeply convinced that their product is unparalleled.?
This naive belief in the superiority of their product can sometimes blind them to the realities of the market.?
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It serves us well to take a step back and objectively assess not just the product, but also the broader landscape and the strengths and weaknesses of competing products.?
My go-to is a SWOT analysis, which permits us to cater to our strengths instead of chasing giants. Not to mention that by understanding your product's true strengths, you can better position and market it.?
Changing positions
Be brave to change your mind.
It can get frustrating when facing a stubborn stakeholder whose position seems to be unchanging regardless of how many arguments you throw their way. Stubbornness, when unfounded, is frustrating. It can also lead to stagnation.?
There are times when, after receiving new data or insights, we need to change our positions.?
Our ability to sift through data-driven metrics, adeptly troubleshoot, and accurately identify the root cause of deviations is paramount. We're constantly inundated with data, feedback, and new insights. And sometimes, these pieces of information challenge our previously held beliefs, especially about our KPIs.?
Shifting our stance based on fresh insights or data isn't indicative of inconsistency. On the contrary, it's a sign of maturity, adaptability, and a deep-seated commitment to the product's success.?
Changing approach
Be brave to change your ways.
Just because the whole company or the world out there is following agile or scrum, doesn’t mean you need to.?
Just because your company is following a three-week cadence, doesn’t mean that it will work for your project if you need to fail and learn fast.
Frameworks are just guidelines that you choose to achieve better results. You do have a choice.
A vendor once asked my team to follow Scrum framework, with all ceremonies and strict sprint cadences, in a 4-month fixed term project where they were billing us by the hour. Now, I applaud the commitment to Scrum, but a tight budget, tight schedule and inability to fully integrate the vendor team into our delivery team rendered that entirely impractical. So we’ve agreed to follow kanban instead.
Our minds are malleable, capable of adapting and evolving.?
Your ability to embrace change isn't just an advantage, it's a necessity for continuous learning, adaptability and success.?