My product management toolkit (40): managing time

December 31, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

“Time Management” comes up in lot in conversations that I have with other product managers. The concern is about their ability to be a good product person, managing a product end-to-end while being short on time and fighting lots of different, and often conflicting requests. We’re busy* all the time but are we busy working on the right things? Are we able to focus on the things that really matter? How much control do we have over our own calendars? If not, are there ways to regain some of that control?

* Since moving to the UK over 14 years ago I must have come across at least ten different ways of saying that you’re busy, almost like a badge of honour 🙂 From being chock a block to being slammed to up to your eyeballs, it definitely took me some time getting used to these expressions 🙂

Especially given the fluid nature of the product management role and the associated risk of being pulled in lots of different directions, it’s important to consider how we spend our time and what we should say ‘no’ to. I will share a number of tools and techniques that you might find useful when prioritising and managing your time, based both on my own experience and the great work by Jake Knapp (Make Time) and Greg McKeown (Essentialism):

We’ve got a choice (1) – Sometimes I can’t help scratching my head when we talk about empowering people. In my mind, people are empowered when they enter the workplace, but collectively we inadvertently end up taking some of that power away, e.g. by entering meetings in people’s diaries, setting recurring tasks, etc. Understandably, we don’t always feel empowered or comfortable saying no to things, instead saying things like “I have to” or “They want me to”. In the great book “Essentialism” Greg McKeown reminds us that we have the power of choice and that we can say “I choose to”.
We’ve got a choice (2) – The ability to choose can be applied to tough tradeoff decisions on how to best spend your time. Instead of asking the question “How can I do both?” we should wonder “Which problem do I want?” or “What can I go big on?” We thus put ourselves in a position where we decide about the tradeoffs that we’re prepared to make. Ultimately this comes down to establishing what really matters and why.
Identify what really matters – McKeown suggests that a ‘non-essentialist’ says yes to almost every request or opportunity, based on very broad criteria. In contrast, an ‘essentialist’ will say yes to only the top 10% of opportunities, using explicit criteria to (de) prioritise opportunities. I like how McKeown tries to keep things simple by suggesting that “if it isn’t a clear yes, then it’s a clear no.” You can also use Suzy Welch’s 10/10/10 test to decide whether something is worth prioritising or not: How will I feel about this 10 minutes from now? How about 10 months from now? How about 10 years from now?
Saying “no” – Saying “no” is a valid option when presenting with conflicting requests, and there are a number of ways to say no graciously but firmly (see Fig. 1 below).
Reflect on how you currently spend your time – Particularly if you’re feeling chronically overworked or that you’re not getting anything done, it’s worth keeping track of how you’re spending your time. Over the course, you could track how much time you spend in meetings, checking and responding to email or Slack messages, reading a book, doing exercise, doing admin tasks, etc. This exercise isn’t about accounting for every minute of the day but about building up a more global picture of how you spend your time. For instance, if you find that 80% of your time is spent, it could be worth reflecting on the different meetings you attend. How helpful are they? Why (not)? What are the opportunity cost attached to attending these meetings? Reflecting on such findings will help you in making tweaks to your schedule or ways of working.
Carve out time (1) – Naturally, it’s hard to cater for unexpected events or things taking longer than planned if your schedule is fully packed with meetings or other activities. Keown recommends building in some buffer time – daily or weekly – to deal with unexpected events or to start preparing early for future priorities or commitments. Generally, blocking out time is extremely important if you want to retain a sense of proactivity and doing those things that really matter to you. For example, no one is going to schedule in regular time slots for you to study competitors or to look at product performance data, and you might well have to block out dedicated time to ensure this happens on a regular basis.
Carve out time (2) – Similar to how you’d carve out time to do specific things, it can help to block out time to respond to email instead of constantly being distracted by new messages coming in. I find that if you only go through email twice a day, e.g. from 9-10am and 4-5pm – you’ll capture most of the important stuff in your inbox while still being responsive. To make the most of the dedicated that you carve out, I suggest minimising distractions e.g. by temporarily turning off email, Slack or text notifications. I know it involves using technology, but apps like Forest can be a great help if you want to create focus time.
Pick and plan your highlights (1) – In “Make Time” Jake Knapp distinguishes four steps to making sure we focus on the right things, repeating these steps every day: highlight, laser, reflect and energise (see Fig. 2 below). Knapp stresses the importance of thinking upfront what you’d like to be the highlight of the end of each day, making sure that you spend time on things that matter to you instead of losing the entire day reacting to other people’s priorities.
Pick and plan your highlights (2) – Knapp suggests three different ways to pick your highlight: urgency, satisfaction and joy (see Fig. 3 below). I have seen other people apply a similar approach, whereby they select a few big ‘rocks’ that they really want or need to do on a given day, complemented by a small number of ‘pebbles’. Similarly, when I plan my day, I typically have a small number of items above the line and a certain number of items below the line, trying to make sure I do the above the line items first.
Apply made up constraints – Even if a deadline or another type of constraint hasn’t been set, you can apply one to make sure you achieve your goals. For instance, if you’re preparing a work presentation and are worried about spending days on the largest PowerPoint deck the world has ever seen, you can set yourself a maximum number of slides that you can’t go over. Naturally, the trick is to then stick to the deadline or restriction that you’ve made up, but I know from experience that applying these constraints goes a long way in being productive.

Main learning point: I know full well that there are plenty of great books, blog posts, etc. on the topic of time management, and the approach that works for one person might not work for someone else. Writing this post, however, made me reflect on the key thing about managing your time: proactivity. Time management is all about being more on the front foot with respect to adding value to your life, your job, relationships, etc. and therefore a topic worthy revisiting on a regular basis.

Fig. 1 – Ways of saying “no” graciously but firmly – Adapted from: Greg McKeown, Essentialism

Pause – Pause for a moment when a request comes to you. You can take a moment to count to three when you’re being asked in person or not responding immediately via email. Doing this gives you the time necessary to decide whether you can or want to honour the request.
The soft “no” (or the “no but” or “not now”) – Instead of a blunt no, you could say something something along the lines of “I can’t do it now, but can I do it by the end of this week instead, as I need to finish a few other things first. Would that work?” or “No, but let me check with my team whether someone else can do it.”
Let me check my calendar and get back to you – To avoid committing to something and only afterwards realising that there’s a diary or priority conflict, I will often give myself time to check my calendar and priorities before confirming.
Say, “Yes. What should I deprioritise?” – No one has said that prioritisation is a pure solo effort. By indicating that something will have to give if you say yes, you can have a constructive conversation about your priorities and an opportunity to further explain why you prioritised these things in the first place.
Say it with humour – Having lots on or saying no doesn’t mean that the world is falling apart 🙂 Sometimes, I will joke about needing to get creative to make things happen or doing some time-travelling to indicate that I can’t satisfy the request (now).
Use the words “You are welcome to X. I am willing to X” – Not only does the phrase “You are welcome to X. I am willing to do Y” provide clarity about what the other person can expect, you’re also being explicit about what you can’t or aren’t willing to do.

Fig. 2 – Make time consists of four steps – Taken from: Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, Make Time

Highlight – Choose a single activity to prioritise and protect in your calendar.
Laser – Beat distraction to make time for your Highlight.
Energise – Use the body to recharge the brain.
Reflect – Take a few notes before you go to bed, adjust and improve your system based on your reflections.

Fig. 3 – Make time consists of four steps – Taken from: Jake Knapp and John Zeratsky, Make Time

Urgency – What’s the most pressing thing I have to do today?
Satisfaction – At the end of the day, which Highlight will bring me the most satisfaction?
Joy – When I reflect on today, what will bring me the most joy?

Related links for further learning:

Book Review: “Unlearn” by Barry O’Reilly

November 19, 2019November 19, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

“Disruption does not actually apply to organisations. The truth is it applies to individuals.” states Barry O’Reilly early on in Unlearn: Let Go of Past Success to Achieve Extraordinary Results. O’Reilly goes on to explain what great leaders and their companies have in common: a capability within themselves to innovate, adapt, and anticipate the future. Barry O’Reilly is a business advisor, entrepreneur, and author who operates at the intersection of business model innovation, product development, organisational design and culture transformation.

In order to adjust, O’Reilly argues in his latest book, we’ll need to unlearn, which starts with acknowledging that what you’re doing isn’t working for you. You need to let go of past viewpoints or behaviours, and take action to do what’s needed to progress. The Cycle of Unlearning contains four distinct steps to go through each time we need to adapt and innovate.

Barry O’Reilly, The Cycle of Unlearning

Step 1: Unlearn – Unlearning starts with the recognition that what we’re doing isn’t working. The core premise of “Unlearn” is a strong willingness to learn and to unlearn those behaviours and mindsets which once served us successfully. The first step in the process of unlearning requires courage, self-awareness, and humility to accept that your own beliefs, mindsets, or behaviours are limiting your potential and current performance and that you must consciously move away from them.

Step 2: Relearn – O’Reilly makes the point that as you unlearn your current limiting but ingrained methods, behaviours, and thinking, you can take in new data, information, and perspectives. This is the process of relearning, which comes with its own challenges: (1) you must be willing to adapt and be open to information that goes against your inherent beliefs (2) you may need to to learn how to learn again and (3) you must create an environment for relearning to happen in a meaningful, yet often challenging, space outside your existing comfort zone. The point of relearning is that you’re trying to get better information and learn to see, sense, and listen differently, to respond and act differently.

Step 3: Breakthrough – Breakthrough is the net result of unlearning and then relearning. O’Reilly stresses in his book that breakthrough isn’t simply a matter of telling people to think differently, with the expectation that they will act differently as a result. Instead, the way to think differently is to act differently. This isn’t a one off event; it’s continuous and a deliberate practice or habit in its own right, often triggered by specific unlearning prompts:

Where are you falling short of your expectations?
Where are you not seeing the outcomes you want?
What are you willing to do to affect those outcomes?
How could you get out of your comfort zone and succeed?
What would thinking BIG but starting small be for you?

In the book, O’Reilly outlines what he sees as the four necessary conditions of unlearning:

Identify a challenge you wish to address – Pick a challenge you want to tackle and don’t worry about waiting for the right moment to do so. O’Reilly suggests that the best place to start is where you’re right now.
Define success as though you have dissolved or conquered the challenge – What are the behaviours you, your team, or your customers would be exhibiting to confirm that you had addressed that challenge and not only solved it, but dissolved it forever?
Channel courage over seeking comfort – O’Reilly makes the point that seeking comfort over courage often results in taking the easy option of avoiding situations where you feel you’re not in control of the outcome. As a result, you’re stuck in the status quo and not growing. Whilst not easy to do, moving outside your comfort zone requires courage and a willingness to be vulnerable.
Commit to, start, and scale the cycle of unlearning – Once the three previous conditions are in place, it’s important to commit to moving forward through the Cycle of Unlearning and to do so continually (see above).

Helpfully, O’Reilly has included necessary conditions for relearning and breakthrough too. Reflection, for example, is a necessary condition for relearning. Continuously reflecting on what has happened will lead to valuable, breakthrough moments and insights. You break through by stepping back and reflecting on exactly what it is that you’re doing and the results your effort is yielding.

Main learning point: Having not really thought about the concept about unlearning before, Barry O’Reilly’s book provided much clarity about discarding old beliefs or approaches and replacing them with new ones. Never does the book feel like unlearning is a silver bullet that will magically solve all your learning or innovation challenges. Instead, O’Reilly pains a realistic picture of the courage required to unlearn, and the ongoing nature of un- and relearning.

Book Review: “Red Teaming” by Bryce Hoffman

September 10, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

Groupthink or complacency can be devastating when developing great products. Having someone who plays or is a devil’s advocate is often a welcome aspect of the product development process. So-called “red teams” take playing devil’s advocate to the next level; the mission of such teams is to force businesses and people to think differently. Red teams will push businesses to consider alternative points of view or contemplate worst case scenarios. Red teaming makes us aware of our assumptions and cognitive biases, and offers us a means of overcoming them. “Red Teaming” is the brilliant book by Bryce Hoffman in which he examines the origins of red teaming and offers an abundance of red teaming techniques.

Red teaming exercises are applied in a wide range of contexts:

Cybersecurity – Companies hiring specialised red teams to attack their technology and exploit security vulnerabilities. Going beyond standard penetration tests, red teams will act as aggressively and unrestricted as any hacker would.
Intelligence – Whether it’s NATO, the CIA or the Israeli army, they all have teams dedicated to doing “alternative analysis”, set up explicitly to challenge prevalent assumptions within intelligence bodies.
Business – When developing a business strategy, companies often consider a best case scenario, assuming that everything will go to plan. Red teaming exercises can help in laying bare any strategic gaps or flaws, helping companies scan the business environment for both threats and opportunities.

Whatever the context, red teaming is all about rigorous questioning and thinking unconventionally. Red teams consists of people who’ve proven to be contrarian thinkers. These are the three phases of a typical red teaming exercise:

Using analytical tools to question the arguments and assumptions that too often go unquestioned during the regular planning process.
Using imaginative techniques to figure out what could go wrong – and what could go right – with the plan, in order to expose hidden threats and missed opportunities.
Applying contrarian thinking to challenge the plan and force the organisation to consider alternative perspectives.

Hoffman argues that adopting a red teaming mindset means that you’re not taking anything for granted, challenging everything and thinking the unthinkable. Red teaming is about looking at the future, and not getting burdened by the past. In the book, Hoffman also explain what red teaming is not:

A challenge to leadership – The red team’s role is to empower leaders and managers to make better decisions by providing them with a more objective analysis, a more comprehensive picture of the business environment, and alternative options to consider.
A creator of new plans – Hoffman stresses that red teams don’t make plans. In contrast, their purpose is to make existing plans better.
Always right (or has to be right) – Red teams don’t need to be right to be effective. They work more effectively in those environments where it’s ok to be wrong.

The question arises when it make sense to create a red team. Hoffman explains that although all red teaming starts out with a problem, not all problems require red teaming. David Snowden’s Cynefin framework is great tool to figure whether it’s worth doing a red teaming exercise:

Fig. 1 – David Snowden’s Cynefin framework – Taken from: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/The-four-contexts-of-the-Cynefin-framework-When-in-disorder-the-actual-context-is-not_fig2_283194976

If problems fall in the “complicated” or the “simple” quadrants of the Cynefin framework, they can be solved through a more straightforward, reductionist approach to problem solving. Problems that are “complex” or “chaotic” tend to be much more open ended and fluid, thus benefiting from a more radical problem solving approach. Ideally, red teaming should begin after a plan has been created but before it has been approved, while there’s still time to approve it.

Finally, Hoffman’s book contains a range of valuable techniques to consider as part of a red teaming exercise:

Problem Restatement – When faced with a challenge or problem, one of the best first steps in solving – even before you start thinking up possible solutions – is to examine and restate the problem.
Think-Write-Share – This technique is a way of ensuring that the red team begins with divergent thinking and moves to convergent thinking. The technique works like this: Start by asking team members to think about a problem or question, then write down their thoughts and share them with the group.
1-2-4-All – 1-2-4-All enables you to engage all team members simultaneously – irrespective of team size – in generating questions, ideas, and suggestions.
Argument Dissection – Dissecting an argument involves asking a number of questions of any argument that is used to justify a particular course of action, or that is offered as an explanation for a problem.
Key Assumptions Check – Hoffman explains how in red teaming, it’s essential to differentiate between facts and assumptions. Facts are things that are objectively true right now. However, most plans fail because they rely on unstated or unexamined assumptions.

Main learning point: Red teams or red teaming exercises can be extremely valuable for businesses, whether you’re creating a strategy or developing a new product. Red teaming breaks through groupthink and inertia, and will offer important alternative perspectives to consider.

Related links for further learning:

Book review: “Outcomes Over Output” by Joshua Seiden

June 27, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

Over the years I’ve learned a lot from Josh Seiden, starting with “Lean UX” which he coauthored with Jeff Gothelf. Seiden recently published “Outcomes Over Output” a nifty little book (should take about 40 minutes to read), which – you guessed it – encourages it readers to move from “making stuff” to creating outcomes by changing customer behaviour. Seiden asserts that customer behaviour is the key metric for business success:

What is an outcome? Seiden defines an outcome as “a change in human behaviour that drives business results.” He goes on to explain that outcomes have nothing to do with making ‘stuff’ – though they’re something created by making the right stuff. He explains that “outcomes are the changes in the customer, user, employee behaviour that lead to good things for your company, your organisation, or whomever is the focus of your work.”
Delivering value early and often – Instead of big bang product releases, Seiden stresses the importance of creating specific, smaller customer behaviours that drive business results. Think for instance about enabling users to create music playlist, so that they can find their favourite music easily. You can create new behaviours or focus on existing customer behaviours (e.g. opening emails or sharing images). This could in turn help increase the life time value of those users, which is a measurable business result. Seiden reminds us of the first Agile principle – “our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of valuable software.” Seiden rephrases this principle slightly to best fit today’s context: “our highest priority is to satisfy the customer through early and continuous delivery of value.”
Outcomes, experiments, hypotheses, and MVPs – I loved Seiden’s point about what constitutes an Minimum Viable Product (‘MVP’) and what doesn’t. “An MVP is NOT version 1.0 of your product. Instead, think of MVP as the smallest thing you can make to learn if your hypothesis is correct”, explains Seiden. He talks about agile projects effectively being a series of hypotheses and experiments, all designed to achieve an outcome.
Finding the right outcomes (1) – For me, the million dollar question behind “Outcomes Over Output” is how teams determine the right outcomes to concentrate on. Firstly, you start with a fairly simple question: “what are the customer behaviours that drive business results?” You set an “impact level target”; e.g. increase the rate at which customers visit the site from once a month to twice a month or to reduce the number of times users abandon the checkout process on the app from hundred times a month to ten times a month. Secondly, once the impact level target has been defined, we can then ask “what are the things that customers do that they predict they’ll visit our site?” or “what are the behaviours that predict a successful customer checkout on the app?” In both examples, the focus is on observable and measurable outcomes.
Finding the right outcomes (2) – Rather helpfully, Seiden shares what he refers to as “The Magic Questions” that we can all apply when figuring out the right, measurable outcomes to concentrate on: (1) What are the user and customer behaviours that drive business results. This is the outcome that we’re trying to create; (2) How can we get people to do more of these behaviours? These are the features, policy changes, promotions, etc. that we’ll do to create the right outcomes and (3) How do we know that we’re right? This uncovers the dynamics of the system, as well as the tests and metrics we’ll use to measure our progress.
Planning around outcomes – Instead of building plans around outputs or features, it often makes makes more sense to plan around themes of work, problems to solve, or outcomes to deliver. Seiden makes the point that the less certain that you are that your outputs (i.e. the features that you want to deliver) will deliver the results you seek, the more it makes sense to plan in terms of outcomes and to build your roadmaps around sets of outcomes.

Main learning point: “Outcomes Over Outputs” does a great job of linking customer focus with specific business results, and is a great read for anyone keen to make the right impact on customer behaviour for the right reasons.

Book review: Banish Your Inner Critic by Denise Jacobs

June 12, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

I think it’s fair to assume that suffering from ‘imposter syndrome’ is common among most of us. Even with those people where you least expect it, they often suffer from some form of self-criticism. In her latest book “Banish Your Inner Critic”, Denise Jacobs links creativity and imposter syndrome: “creativity comes from relaxing self-evaluation and self-judgment – and the self-criticism and self-doubt that result from them.” Not to say that only creative people are prone to self-criticism, but Jacobs focuses on how feeling like an imposter can impact one’s ability to be creative or try things.

Whilst it’s purely anecdotal evidence, I know a lot of creative (product) people who can be their own worst critic. Full disclosure: I’m definitely one of them 🙂 It’s that inner voice telling you that your work is sh*t or, even worse, that you’re useless as a person. Self-criticism can really put (and keep) us down, not only blocking our creativity but also the ways in which we present ourselves or interact with others. In “Banish Your Inner Critic” Jacobs explores where our inner critical voice comes from and how to best manage it:

Replace self-criticism with self-compassion: Jacobs points out that instead of applying self-criticism, we need to actively practice the opposite: self-compassion. Self-compassion is realising that self-criticism is the enemy and then acting to reverse its negative effects. Jacobs adds that self-compassion also helps to unlock creativity. She helpfully explains the two components of self-compassion; (1) making a conscious effort to stop self-judgment and (2) actively comforting ourselves, the same as we would do with a friend in need.
Recognise your inner critical voice – Awareness of your inner critical voice (“Inner Critic”) is crucial. This then enables you to see your critical thoughts for what they are: thoughts. Jacobs shares a great template to help you unearth your critical thoughts (see Fig. 1 below). She adds that “being more aware of what your brain and mind do when sensing a potential threat in the form of being judged and receiving criticism will encourage the development of a calmer part of the mind.”
Know your cognitive distortions – There are a number of so-called cognitive distortions that are relevant to the Inner Critic. Jacobs invites readers to reflect on these and assess how many of them have stuck with them (see Fig. 2 below).
Seek positive confirmation – The good thing about negative confirmation bias, Jacobs points out, is that it can be flipped to create a positive full-filling prophecy too. Rather than walking around in a perpetual state of feeling that no one believes in you, you can be on the hunt for support. Take confirmation and use it as a force for good, Jacobs says, to seek out positivity rather than negativity.
Stop awfulising – I know from experience that it can be easy to slip in a mindset where the worst has just happened or is about to happen. In her book, Jacobs recommends looking at the facts of the situation at hand without embellishing or minimising them as a way of trying to avoid a ‘spiralling’ effect (see Fig. 3 below).
Live better through criticism – Truth be told, I used to really struggle with receiving criticism. Like most people, I still don’t love criticism, but have gotten better at taking in criticism and using it to improve. Jacobs provide a number of valuable tips to help you learn take criticism in well and use to get better at whatever you are doing (see Fig. 4 below).
Move from stagnation to action – The best quote in “Banish Your Inner Critic” comes from Chetan Bhagat: “Be so busy improving yourself that you have no time to criticise others.” Jacobs makes the point that by letting go of our preoccupation with the trajectory of other people’s lives, we can transform our envy from a stagnant, blocking force into a powerful motivator for growth.

Main learning point: “Banish Your Inner Critic” is a very valuable resource for anyone suffering from imposter syndrome, wanting to better manage their critical inner voice. The book’s greatest strength is in helping you reframe your self-criticism; seeing critical thoughts for what they are and combating them with compassionate thoughts.

Fig. 1 – The critical voices in your head – Taken from: Denise Jacobs, Banish Your Inner Critic, pp. 77-78:

I can’t ______________________________________ because ______________________________________________________.

I’m not _____________________________________________________________________________________ enough.

I’m afraid that I’m _________________________ because I ______________________________________________________.

I never ____________________________________ because I always _______________________________________________.

I’m afraid that I’ll _____________________________ because I ___________________________________________________.

I can’t ________________________________________ because I’m not as _____________________________________ others.

If I __________________________________________ then people will _________________________________________________.

I shouldn’t __________________________________ because I haven’t _______________________________________________.

I _____________________________________________ because my ideas ______________________________________________.

I’m too ________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

My biggest fear around my creativity is ______________________________________________________________________.

Fig. 2 – Know your cognitive distortions – Taken from: Denise Jacobs, Banish Your Inner Critic, pp. 110-130:

Mental Filter (also called selective abstraction or tunnel vision) / Magnification and Minimisation (also called the binocular trick) – You find ample evidence to support negative beliefs, but filter out any positive counterexamples.
Overgeneralisation – You make a broad, sweeping negative conclusion from a single isolated occurrence and then apply to all instances of its kind, making a truism from it.
Jumping to conclusions – You negatively interpret the meaning of a situation without any actual evidence or facts to support your conclusion.
Mind reading – You determine that the thoughts of others toward you are unfavourable despite lacking sufficient evidence, considering other more likely possibilities, or even checking it out..
Fortune telling or catastrophising – You predict that circumstances will turn out poorly, and then are convinced that your prediction is fact despite lacking supportive evidence.
Emotional reasoning – You turn feelings into facts and assume that the way you feel emotionally is a reflection of reality, and ignore evidence to the contrary.
All or Nothing Thinking (also called black and white, polarised or dichotomous thinking) – You look at situations in black and white categories instead of along a continuum.
Should statements (also called imperatives) – You use shoulds and should nots as your main source of motivation, holding yourself to a precise and strict list of acceptable behaviour.
Disqualifying / Diminishing the positive – You discount or ignore positive experiences, situations, attributes, and qualities.
Personalisation – You assume responsibility for negative events and circumstances that are outside of your control, blaming yourself unnecessarily for situations without more plausible explanations for the root causes.
Labelling and mislabelling – You generalise and make labels of negative characterisations of yourself and others based on perceived shortcomings and a limited set of behaviours, without considering facts otherwise.

Fig. 3 – Stop awfulising – Taken from: Denise Jacobs, Banish Your Inner Critic, p. 121:

First on a piece of paper or in a journal, write down and answer the question:

What I am afraid will happen?

Next, write down a response to this question:

What could happen?

However, instead of going into a place where your anxious thoughts push yourself to awfulise the situation, actively apply realistic optimism. Tell yourself the story of what could possibly happen using “and then …” to devise an alternative that is positive instead of the feared outcome. Build upon this new realistically optimistic story by making each of your “and then…” additions more positive until you feel better and your fear diminishes.

Use this framework:

and then ___________________________________________________________________________________________________________.

Fig. 4 – Curious and open – Taken from: Denise Jacobs, Banish Your Inner Critic, pp. 132-133:

Breathe – Get yourself grounded and make an effort to stay relaxed so that you don’t end up blocking the information through being tense, anxious or defensive.
Detach – Make an effort to detach whatever criticism you get from your self-worth. Even when it seems that a person is criticising who you are as a person, there’s a good chance that what they are actually criticising is your behaviour.
Listen actively – One of the best ways to do so is to write everything down. This will help you detach from your emotions and put you more into a listening mode. Ask questions to clarify points, and make notes of items to double-check or focus when you review your notes.
Get specifics – What specifically does the person think you need to improve? What are her or his thoughts and suggestions on how you can do so?
Find the relevant – Take criticisms with a grain of salt. Use your powers of discernment to keep what is relevant and ignore the rest.
Invite – Actively solicit constructive criticism or ask for it – and be appreciate of their suggestions.
Discover – Set your intention to discover new perspectives and ideas that you may not have considered.
Be curious – Approach the criticisms with curiosity. Look for what was the most interesting thing the person said. It could be that they revealed a major insight through that point.
Grow – The criticism can help to shine a light on issues that you still need to resolve within yourself: fears, doubts, and insecurities.
Save time and learn – Changing how you react to criticism is actually a time-saver: if you really take in the information and learn from it, you will save yourself making the same mistakes and having to try the lessons in the future.

Related links for further learning:

Book review: The Making of a Manager by Julie Zhuo

March 26, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

“The Making of a Manager” is the first book by Julie Zhuo, VP of Product Design at Facebook. In “The Making of a Manager”, Julie shares her experiences and learnings with regard to her transition from being a personal contributor to becoming a manager. “This is a book about how someone with no formal training learned to become a confident manager” is the starting point for Julie’s book.

When she started her first role as a manager at Facebook, Julie had very little experience under her belt and she describes what she thought a manager’s job was:

have meetings with reports to help them solve their problems,
share feedback about what is or isn’t going well, and
figure out who should be promoted and who should be fired.

Without wanting to spoil the rest of “The Making of a Manager”, this is how Julie sees a manager’s job today:

build a team that works well together,
support members in reaching their career goals, and
create processes to get work done smoothly and efficiently.

Julie summarises that “Your job, as a manager, is to get better outcomes from a group of people working together.” She puts a great focus on outcomes and refers to her former manager Chris Cox, ex VP of Product at Facebook, who explained that half of what he as a manager looks at were his team’s results and the other half was based on the strength and satisfaction of his team.

I liked Julie’s inclusion of Richard J. Hackman’s research into what helps create successful teams (see Fig. 1 below). She uses a similar approach to managers creating the right conditions for their teams:

Purpose – The purpose is the outcome your team is trying to accomplish, otherwise known as the why. The first big part of your job as a manager, Julie writes, is to ensure that your team knows what success looks like and cares about achieving it.
People – This is all about the who. Are the members of your team set up to succeed? Do they have the right skills? Are they motivated to do great work? To manage people well, Julie explains, you must develop trusting relationships with them, understand their strengths and weaknesses (as well as your own – see below), make good decisions about who should do what (including hiring and firing when necessary), and coach individuals to do their best.
Process – This describes how your team works together. Julie clarifies that process in her mind isn’t about stacks of paperwork and frameworks for everything, but enabling teams to make decisions and work together effectively: “In a team setting, it’s impossible for a group of people to coordinate what needs to get done without spending time on it. The larger the team, the more time is needed.”

Staying on the topic of defining management, Julie provides a useful distinction between leadership and management. Manager is a specific role, with clear principles outlining what a manager does and how his success is measured. Leadership, on the other hand, is the particular skill of being able to guide and influence other people. Julie makes the point that a leader doesn’t have to be a manager; “Anyone can exhibit leadership, regardless of their role.”

In “The Making of a Manager”, Julie covers a lot of different facets of becoming and being a manager. From recounts her first couple of months as a manager to breaking down her views on strong management, Julie offers a ton of insights and tips for those of us who are managers or would like to take on this role. Let’s pick some aspects that resonated with me most:

Trust is the most important ingredient – It may sound obvious, but the importance of investing time and effort into creating / maintaining trusting relationships can get easily overlooked. Julie mentions that the hallmark of a trusting relationship is that people feel they can share their mistakes, challenges, and fears with you.
Giving and receiving critical feedback – Similar to Kim Scott and Amy Edmondson, Julie talks about how managers and their direct reports need to be able to give each other critical feedback regularly without it being taken personally. If your report does work that you don’t think is great, are you comfortable saying that directly? Similarly, would your report tell you if you if he thinks you’ve made a mistake?
Be honest and transparent about your report’s performance – As a manager, your perspective on how your report is doing carries far more weight than his perspective on how you’re doing. After all, you’re the one who determines what he works on and whether he should get a promotion or be fired.
Admit your own mistakes and growth areas – Julie shares how she tries to admit when she doesn’t have the answers or when she’s working through her own personal challenges, and shares a number of useful phrases that she’ll typically use when doing so (see Fig. 2 below).
Managing yourself – Here, Julie talks about the so-called imposter syndrome, i.e. where you doubt your accomplishments and worry being exposed as a “fraud”. She raises the question why imposter syndrome hits managers particularly hard and gives two main reasons. Firstly, because managers are often looked to for answers. Secondly, managers are constantly put in the position where they’re put in the position if doing things they haven’t done before. She also talks about managers identifying their own strengths and weaknesses, and “being brutally honest with yourself”.
Amazing meetings – I liked Julie’s points about meetings, the bane of most managers’ lives. She distinguishes between decision-making meetings and informational meetings and explains how being clear about the meeting objective (and structuring the meeting accordingly) can lead to much more effective and enjoyable meetings (see Fig. 3 below).

Fig. 1 – Richard J. Hackman, Hackman’s 5 Factor Model:

Being a Real Team – One with clear boundaries and stable membership.

Compelling Direction – Provide the team with clear goals, which are both challenging and consequential.

Enabling Structure – Where possible, offering the team variety in the tasks they undertake improves the team’s success. Within the team’s structure it’s also key to ensure that team members have strong social skills.

Supportive Context – A supportive context is essential for companies and organisations, as they are made up of small groups which when combined form a larger group.

Expert Coaching – This is about coaching and mentoring the team to help achieve the outcomes they need to achieve and support team members developing their individual skills.

Fig. 2 – Julie Zhou, The Making of a Manager: Sample things to say when you don’t have the answer or are working through personal challenges:

“I don’t know the answer. What do you think?”
“I want to come clean and apologise for what I did/said the other day …”
“One of my personal growth areas this half is …”
“I’m afraid I don’t know enough to help you with that problem. Here’s someone you should talk to instead …”

Fig. 3 – Julie Zhou, The Making of a Manager: Decision-Making Meetings and Informational Meetings:

A great decision-making meeting does the following:

Gets a decision made (obviously)
Includes the people most directly affected by the decision as well as a clearly designated decision-maker.
Presents all credible options objectively and with relevant background information, and includes the team’s recommendation if there’s one.
Gives equal airtime to dissenting opinions and makes people feel that they were heard.

A great informational meeting does the following:

Enables the group to feel like they learned something valuable.
Conveys key messages clearly and memorably.
Keeps the audience’s attention (through dynamic speakers, rich storytelling, skilled pacing, interactivity).
Evokes and intended emotion – whether inspiration, trust, pride, courage, empathy, etc.

Main learning point: “The Making of a Manager” provides an honest, no bullsh*t account of what it means to be manager and how to best transition into a managerial role. Definitely worth a read if you’re manager or looking to become one.

Related links for further learning:

Book review: “High Output Management” by Andrew Grove

March 17, 2019 marcabrahamLeave a comment

“High Output Management” by the late Andrew Grove, ex Chairman and CEO of Intel, is a must read management book in my opinion. It’s easy to be quite cynical about most management and business books as a lot of them seem to introduce one central theme (or buzzword) right at the beginning of the book, followed by endless repetition throughout the remainder of the book …

In contrast, “High Output Management” contains valuable advice and tips from the beginning right to the end of the book. First published back in 1983, the book applies production principles to management. Some of these principles really resonated with me and I feel strongly about all (product) managers benefiting from these principles as part of their day-to-day working practices:

Identifying the “limiting step” – Grove defines the “limiting step” as the step in the overall shape of the production flow that will determine the overall shape of a company’s operations. In the book, Grove uses the simple example of a breakfast company, and highlights the time required to boil an egg is the critical component or the ‘limiting step’ in the production flow (see Fig. 1 below). The key idea here is to construct your production flow by starting with the longest (or most difficult, or most sensitive, or most expensive) step and work our way back. As a (product) manager you’ll thus focus on the limiting step within your context, e.g. in the workflow of your team, the customer funnel or the decision-making process.

Fig. 1 – Example of a limiting step when creating a breakfast – Taken from: http://clarkeching.com/ccblog/2018/1/21/what-are-bottlenecks-andy-grove

Detect and fix issues at the “lowest-value stage” possible – If there’s a problem with your product, you want to find out about it as early on in the production process as possible so that you can minimise risk. In the production world, I witnessed lowest-value stage thinking first hand at the assembly line of a Toyota factory. Here, employees can pull the “Andon” cord to (temporarily) bring things to a halt as soon as they come across an issue. It’s an easy way of escalating things, making sure that a problem or bottleneck is dealt with before proceeding with the rest of the assembly process. Think about when you last pulled an imaginary Andon cord to flag a product or team issue early!?

Fig. 2 Using the Andon cord to raise an issue and stop production – Taken from: https://www.lean.org/lexicon/fixed-position-stop-system

Using (leading) indicators to measure and predict – In order to run a production process well you’ll need a set of indicators which help you monitor and improve the efficiency of the production line. Grove stresses that for these indicators to be useful, “you have to focus each indicator on a specific operational goal.” He goes on to list a number of relevant production indicators (see Fig. 3 below). Leading indicators give you one way to look inside the production process by showing you in advance what the future might look like.

Fig. 3 – Indicators related to the production process – Taken from: Andrew S. Grove, “High Output Management”, p. 16:

Sales forecast
Raw material inventory
Manpower
Quality

Leverage – Grove introduces the concept of “leverage”. This is the output generated by a specific type of work activity. An activity with high leverage will generate a high level of output; an activity with low leverage, a low level of output. This raises the question about what qualifies as managerial leverage and output. Grove’s distinction between activities and output really helps to bring the concept of leverage to life (see Fig. 4 below). The overarching idea is that with each activity that the manager performs, the organisational output should increase.

Fig. 4 – Managerial activities vs output – Taken from: Andrew S. Grove, “High Output Management”, pp. 39 – 54:

Managerial activities:

Judgments and opinions
Direction
Allocation of resources
Mistakes detected
Personnel trained and subordinates developed
Courses taught
Products planned
Commitments negotiated

Managerial output:

A manager’s output is the output of all of the people and the teams that report into her. For example, if someone manages a design team, then his output consists of completed designs that are ready to be implemented. That output can take many different forms depending on the type of role and industry. Regardless of the form of output, managers must measure its quantity and quality:

A manager’s output = The output of his organisation + The output of the neighbouring organisations under his influence

High leverage activities – We’ve already touched on the impact of highly leveraged activities on an organisation’s output, and Grove explains how these activities can be achieved (see Fig. 5 below). For example, to maximise the leverage of his or her activities, a manager must keep timeliness firmly in mind. Equally, managers micro-managing or ‘meddling’ are examples of negative leverage activities. A big part of a manager’s work is to supply information and know-how, and to share a sense of the preferred method of handling things to the teams under his control or influence. A manager also makes and helps to make decisions.

Fig. 5 – Three ways in which to achieve high leverage activities – Taken from: Andrew S. Grove, “High Output Management”, pp. 54 – 55:

When many people are affected by one manager.
When a person’s activity or behaviour over a long period of time is affected by a manager’s, well focused-set of words or actions.
When a large group’s work is affected by an individual supplying a unique, key piece of knowledge or information.

Applying production principles to management – In the book, Grove rightly points out how time management techniques are commonly used to improve managerial output. He then uses production principles to improve on some of these time management techniques (see Fig. 6 below).

Fig. 6 – Ways to improve on time management techniques – Taken from: Andrew S. Grove, “High Output Management”, pp. 62 – 63:

Identify our limiting step: determine which things that have to happen on a schedule that’s absolute, and which can’t be moved. You can then plan more flexible activities around it and thus work more efficiently.
Batching similar tasks: group similar activities, e.g. performance reviews, as these activities tend to require (mental) set-up time. You can thus maximise the set-up time needed for the task and reduce duplication of effort.
Forecasting your activities: Your calendar can be a valuable production-planning tool (and not a dumping ground for random meetings or “orders” by others). If you want to use your calendar as better forecasting and planning tools, Grove suggest that two conditions should be met. Firstly, you should move toward the active use of your calendar, taking the initiative to fill the holes between the time-critical events with non-time critical though necessary activities. Secondly, you should say “no” at the outset to work beyond your capacity to handle.

Meetings, the output of managerial work – A lot of managerial tasks (see “High leverage activities” above) are best suited for face-to-face interactions, and more often than not, for meetings. Grove provides a useful distinction between two basic kinds of meetings: process-oriented and mission-oriented meetings (see Fig. 7 below). I love how at the end of the book’s chapter about meetings, Grove reminds us of a quote by the late management guru Peter Drucker who said that “If people spend more than 25 percent of their time in meetings, it’s a sign of malorganisation.”

Fig. 7 – Process-oriented and mission-oriented meetings – Taken from: Andrew S. Grove, “High Output Management”, pp. 72 – 87:

Process-oriented meetings: Knowledge is shared and information is exchanged during process-oriented meetings, which take place on a regular, scheduled basis. One-on-ones and team meetings are good examples of process-oriented meetings.
Mission-oriented meetings: The purpose of mission-oriented meetings is to solve a specific problem and often produce a decision. These meetings are ad hoc affairs, not scheduled long in advance, because they usually can’t be. The key to the success of a mission-oriented meeting is what the chair of the meeting does. The person leading the meeting needs to have a clear understanding of the meeting’s objective – what needs to happen and what decision needs to be made.

Planning: today’s actions for tomorrow’s output – In High Output Management, Grove offers three simple steps of a planning process (see Fig. 8 below). He describes planning as an ordinary everyday activity, something we all do – both in our professional and personal lives. The planning process enables you to reflect on what’s needed, the gap with the current situation and the specific actions necessary to close the gap.

Fig. 8 – Three steps your planning process should consist of – Taken from: Andrew S. Grove, “High Output Management”, pp. 103 – 120:

Step 1 – Establish projected need or demand: What will the environment demand from you, your business, or your organisation?

Step 2 – Established your present status: What are you producing now? What will you be producing as your projects in the pipeline are completed?

Step 3 – Compare and reconcile steps 1 and 2: What more (or less) do you need to do to produce what your environment will demand?

Main learning point: “High Output Management” is probably one of the most valuable management books I’ve read in the last couple of years. If you’re looking for an inspiring but practical book about management, I suggest you look no further: High Output Management is the book for you!

As I learn …

This site is about everything digital, giving an update on new things as I learn

Category: Book Reviews

My product management toolkit (40): managing time

* Since moving to the UK over 14 years ago I must have come across at least ten different ways of saying that you’re busy, almost like a badge of honour 🙂 From being chock a block to being slammed to up to your eyeballs, it definitely took me some time getting used to these expressions 🙂

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Book review: “High Output Management” by Andrew Grove