Every job or organisation comes with its own pressures and challenges. Millions of people will have a bad day at work, some people probably more frequently than others 🙂 That said, I believe that being a product manager can be one of the more frustrating roles out there. The same things that make product management such a great craft are the ones that can make the life of a product manager one filled with frustrations:

• Constant navigation between all sections of the business
• Interacting with a wide range of stakeholders
• Being accountable without authority
• Working in fast paced and high pressure environments
• Regular dealings with complexity and uncertainty

Some product managers will suffer from frustration more than others and each person will have his or her own way of dealing with it but there are tools can help and so below I’m going to outline a number of tools that I use to try and manage some of the frustrations that I find can come with the day job.

A personal confession first

I definitely get frustrated. I like to think that I’ve come a long way in managing this, but I realise that it’s something I’ll always need to be mindful of and work on. When I reflect on some of the causes that have triggered my frustrations in the past, they tend to come down to the following triggers:

• Things not going to ‘plan’ – I must admit, as much I know rationally that in product management things hardly ever go to plan or pan out the way you expect, I used to get quite frustrated when this was the case.
• Taking things personally – Almost by default, as a product manager you’re accountable when a product isn’t performing or doesn’t live up to expectation. I really struggled with this, especially at the beginning of my product career as I’d take things highly personally. As a result, I’d get very deflated and defensive.
• Missing a shared sense of urgency – Whenever I sense – rightly or wrongly – that other people are not pulling their weight, it can really get my back up. I love working in teams where there’s a shared sense of ownership and responsibility, and I sometimes find it tough when I feel that shared sense is missing somewhat.

Sounds familiar? I’ve come across plenty of product managers over the years who’ve been very open with me about their frustrations, so I know that I’m not unique in this respect and that it’s worth looking at some ways to cope with frustrations …

1. Learn about your triggers

The first ‘tool’, I’d highly recommend is to identify the situations or people that trigger a frustrated feeling within you. What triggers an emotional reaction in you, why? For example:

• Meetings with ‘difficult’ stakeholders
• Feeling that you’re stuck, struggling to see a way forward
• A product or feature not performing as hoped
• Colleagues feeling frustrated or pressured
• A comment or criticism by a colleague
• Other people not meeting your standards or values

If you know what tends to strike a nerve or when you might be at risk, you’re in a much better position to pre-empt the trigger from having an impact, i.e. causing a negative feeling. For example, when I know that a conversation with a stakeholder is likely to be a tricky one, I’ll catch a few minutes of fresh air beforehand or have think about how to best approach the meeting.

In an ideal world, we’d totally avoid situations which might trigger us. But this isn’t possible in reality, and knowing your coping mechanisms for when triggers do strike, can be incredibly helpful.

2. Big I / little i

Since I was first introduced to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (‘CBT’) about 20 years ago, I’ve been using CBT tools and techniques on a daily basis to manage my emotions and behaviours. For instance, where I used to take negative feedback very badly, I’m now much better at taking things on the chin and learning from feedback, using the “Big I / little i” method that’s commonly used within CBT (see Fig. 1 below).

Fig. 1 – “Big I / little i”, Taken from: https://quietspacecoaching.co.uk/category/cbt-cbc/

The “Big I / little i” technique is essentially about decoupling mistakes or perceived criticism from who you are as a person. For example, if I make a mistake in communicating with others, this doesn’t make me a bad person (“Big I”), it’s one of my many acts and behaviours, and one that I can look at and improve (“little i”).

3. Write. It. Down.

Have you ever been frustrated at work and your frustration turned into something much bigger: you feeling very deflated about your product, your colleagues, your job, etc. Before you know it, something that started as a molehill quickly evolved into Mount Everest. Whenever I want to stop my spiralling frustrations, I take a minute to grab my notebook and write it down.

I’ve learned how the mere act of jotting your thoughts down on paper quickly, can be incredibly helpful in gaining perspective and blowing off steam. If you’d like to add some more structure to your thoughts, then I’d highly recommend the “Cognitive Journal” which is part of the CBT toolkit (see Fig. 2). Journalling the “Activating Event”, “Beliefs”, “Consequence” and “Disputing” (‘A-B-C-D’) helps to not only capture what happened but also to look inward to figure out which personal beliefs were trigged and its consequences. For example:

A – Your boss tells you that she isn’t happy with the product feature that was just released to market.

B – You believe that your boss now sees you as incompetent and you feel that you’ve failed.

C – “Perhaps my boss will now fire me; I’ll be unemployed and I’ll never land another job as a product manager.”

D – “No way is my boss going to fire me!” Prior to this feature, I’ve helped create many products our customers love.

It’s easy and totally human to spiral into fatalistic thinking. Thoughts like “Perhaps my boss will now fire me; I’ll be unemployed and I’ll never land another job as a product manager.” Writing these thoughts down can help to make you reflect, and successfully challenge your negative thinking (“Disputing”). See it as a valuable “pause” moment, whereby you temporarily put a specific goal on hold and stop asking “What do I next?”

Fig. 2 – “Cognitive Journal”, Taken from: https://www.1alliancecps.com/wordpress/2013/09/02/cognitive-behavioral-therapy-cognitive-journaling-using-the-abc-model/

4. (Radical) Acceptance

In the book “Emotional Intelligence”, internationally renown psychologist Daniel Goleman writes about the process of ’emotional hijacking’, and describes how we as humans can be taken over by our emotions. In my view ’emotional hijacking’ implies that it’s ok for a person to accept their emotions and whatever caused the emotion to take over. Is there no limit to acceptance of your emotions!?

Upsetting others – deliberately or accidentally – is something I’ll always try to avoid. Naturally, I can’t control how other people perceive my sharing of emotions, but it’s something I’ve become more mindful of over the years. For example, when I just started out as a product manager I used to really voice my anger or frustration to such an extent that the other person would be fearful of me … Realising this, made feel upset in turn since my goal wasn’t to scare or upset people, in my mind I was just being honest and open.

I’ve learned a lot from reading “Radical Acceptance” by Tara Brach, particularly about the best ways to accept the emotions I’m feeling or thoughts I’m thinking on my own, as this helps me to effectively take the sting out of the moment and have less of a negative impact on the emotions of others. Don’t get me wrong; this doesn’t mean that I’ve become a wallflower and that I only speak in dulcet tones 🙂 but I will take a minute or say to try and think before I talk or share my emotions (I’ve written about this previously).

 

 

Acceptance also means accepting your flaws and mistakes, and helps to accept things not going to plan or serious mistakes that you’ve made. Again, acceptance doesn’t mean that you simply resign to failure or a bad situation. In contrast, acceptance of a problem or a bad decision can make you see it for what it is, and be more constructive about it. For example: What can you do to solve a problem? What can you do to improve a situation? What will you do differently next time?

Amanda, a product person who I really look up to, told me once when I was upset that we as product managers act as problem solvers, irrespective of whether we’ve created the problem or not. And her saying this really helped me to understand that there’s no point just fighting or denying a problem. Instead, we should focus on what we can do to undo or improve things.

5. A word of warning

I wish I could say that I always lead by example when it comes to managing my emotions and practice what I preach 24//7.

 

 

It was only last week where I showed my frustration in front of my team and in hindsight I wasn’t happy with the way in which I’d expressed my frustration with what I felt was a lack of urgency and commitment. The point I’m making here is that eradicating frustrations or emotions completely is nigh-on impossible and possibly not even desirable.

“Honesty” and “Authenticity” are two of my core values which means that I’ll always try to say how it is and stay true to myself. I’ve therefore accepted that I might say or do things that might not sit well with other people and their personal values. However, I’m constantly learning to be mindful of other people, their beliefs and ways of doing things. Managing my own frustrations first helps me to better manage my own emotions, and get the most out of the people that I work with – in the right way. My hope is that you’ll find some of the aforementioned tools helpful in managing your own emotions.

Related links for further learning:

1. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/living-forward/201504/3-simple-steps-control-anger-and-frustration-others
2. https://www.psychologytoday.com/gb/blog/happiness-in-world/201202/how-manage-frustration
3. https://positivepsychologyprogram.com/cbt-cognitive-behavioral-therapy-techniques-worksheets/
4. https://beckinstitute.org/get-informed/what-is-cognitive-therapy/
5. https://quietspacecoaching.co.uk/category/cbt-cbc/
6. http://www.contemplativemind.org/practices/tree
7. http://www.danielgoleman.info/topics/emotional-intelligence/
8. https://www.tarabrach.com/store/
9. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S000579671000238X
10. https://beingwellcenter.wordpress.com/2014/09/11/9-traits-you-should-know-about-your-temperament/

Back in May I spoke at the annual Shift Conference in Split, Croatia and in my talk I looked at the collaboration between product managers and engineers. In “The Product Manager Is Your Best Friend” I tried to demystify some common perceptions about product managers and engineers alike.

For instance, the myth that all product managers are rockstars who can solve any business or customer problem single handedly:

 

 

Or the myth that all developers are fragile beings who just want to be left alone and write code:

 

 

In my talk, I examine what makes a successful collaboration between product people and engineers, and why. I introduce the product feedback loop and its individual stages, looking at roles and responsibilities at each stage:

 

You can watch the full talk below. Let me know your thoughts!

 

 

More than 5 years ago now, I wrote about my first experiences with hiring product managers. In the piece I wrote about the key traits I look for in product managers and specific things to capture during the recruitment process. Since then, I’ve probably interviewed hundreds of product management candidates, compared notes with peers and read books about recruitment. All these inputs have made me realise the following:

Hiring good product managers is HARD!!!

There’s no set definition of what makes a good product manager – or what makes a product manager to start off with. Product managers tend to come in all shapes and sizes, and more often than not, they will have done a variety of different roles prior to turning to product management. Also, the demands of a product manager are likely to vary per organisation, based on size, maturity, type of product, culture, etc.

Over the years, however, I’ve developed a number of questions, though processes and tools which I use when recruiting product managers for my teams. Realising that recruitment is a very broad topic, I’m going to focus predominantly on the specific things to consider before you even kick off the hiring process.

What does good look like?

Good (product management) recruitment starts with asking a few key questions first:

• Why do we need this role? – Especially when your organisation hasn’t hired a product manager before, this is a critical question to ask before you set the recruitment process in motion. For example, is your startup big enough for a product person to drive ongoing product development, and is the founder ready to let go of some of this responsibility? Or: is an organisation which has built successful products without a product management function ready for product managers to join?
• What are the specific gaps that the product manager needs to fill? – The specific problems – short and long term – that a product manager is expected to solve are far and few between. The nature of these problems is unique to factors such as the maturity of the organisation and the position of your product within its lifecycle (see Fig. 1 below). Be clear about the specific value you expect the product manager to add (see also “What do you need to hire a product person for?” below).
• Which are “must have” attributes that you need in a product manager? – Naturally, the specific hard and soft skills you treat as “must have” when hiring are totally subjective. I’ve nevertheless found it very helpful to distinguish between “must haves” – i.e. non-negotiable skills – and “nice to haves”. To illustrate, I’ve outlined some key aspects that I don’t want to compromise on when hiring product managers (see Fig. 2 below).
• What type of product manager are you looking for and why? – I recently read the High Growth Handbook by Elad Gil and his great book contains a section about “The four types of product managers” (see Fig. 3 below). Often companies will need a mix of the four types or require a person to be one type only.

When do I need to hire a product manager?

Figuring out when to hire your first product manager is the million dollar question. Some people will start looking for product people when:

• The input of the founder(s) alone is no longer enough to create a great product.
• Your business is starting to frustrate or lose customers.
• You’ve reached the point where the product starts to scale.
• You’ve reached the point where the business starts to scale.
• Too many good ideas, but struggling to decide about which one to focus on next?

Once your product hits market-fit – i.e. you’re in a good market with a product that can satisfy that market – I recommend having a dedicated product person to drive further product iteration and market growth. Also, when you find that you’re losing touch with your (target) customers and their needs, it’s time to hire your first product person!

 

 

Let’s look at the flip side, and zoom in on those circumstances when you don’t need to hire a product manager just yet:

• The founder is in a position to drive to product.
• The product hasn’t achieved any form of market-fit yet.
• You don’t have customers yet (and you just want to see whether the product has got legs instead).
• or: is worried about letting go of the product.
• You need someone to simply execute on your product requirements.
• There’s a need to implement ‘Agile’ in the business.

I’m all for executing ideas, making them a reality, but I’d argue that you don’t necessarily need a product manager to make things happen. For example, if you’ve got a clear specification of what needs to be built, then a good project manager can help you execute against this spec.

 

What do you need to hire a product person for?

I often come across companies which are on the lookout for a product manager without fully knowing what they expect from that person. Sometimes it will be down to the company’s investors telling them to recruit product managers or a strong desire to become more product centric. Whilst there’s nothing wrong with either motivation, it’s important to recognise that product managers come in all shapes and sizes, naturally excelling at certain aspects of product management and weaker in other areas.

As with any role, a number of characteristics make up a great product manager and unless you manage to find the perfect unicorn, you’ll have to decide upfront which characteristics are absolutely non-negotiable and which ones you consider to be a bonus.

 

 

Instead, I find the traditional product lifecycle model a useful guide when thinking about the specific problems that I’d like an incoming product manager to solve:

Market Development (Stage 1) – You’ll need a person who’s happy to start from scratch, unafraid of ambiguity and who is comfortable experimenting until the product achieves market-fit. Problems to solve here:

• Creating a Minimum Viable Product in the truest sense of the word, demonstrating customer value and testing key business hypotheses.
• Learning about customer needs and behaviours fast and translating these learnings in product iterations.
• Developing a go-to market approach for the product, feed into initial product positioning and pricing.

Growth (Stage 2) – At this stage of the product lifecycle, I recommend looking for someone with experience of or appetite for scaling a product.

• Continuously optimising the product based on data insights, both quantitative and qualitative.
• Making tough tradeoff decisions and being able to say “no” to certain product requests.
• Measuring performance of the product to ensure key goals are being met.
• Localising or modifying the product, in case of new market entries or new customer segments respectively.

Maturity (Stage 3) – With a mature product, you’re unlikely to suddenly see a massive spike in your product’s customer base or usage. Problems to solve here:

• Safeguard the product experience and value for existing customers.
• Optimise the product and resolve any bugs or defects.

Decline (Stage 4) – Your product is at a crossroads as it’s declining. The customer base or usage are in decline. Problems to solve here:

• Deciding whether to terminate a product or feature.
• If you do decide to terminate, managing existing users of that product.
• Transitioning customers to a new product.

By concentrating on different problems to solve at these product lifecycle stages, you can see how there’s no one size fits all solution with respects to the product manager skills required.

Fig. 1 – The Product Lifecycle by Theodor Levitt – Taken from: https://hbr.org/1965/11/exploit-the-product-life-cycle

 

Main learning point: Granted, recruiting great product management is by no means an easy task. However, by doing some careful thinking about the what and the why of a product manager role for your business, you can make a well-informed decision about whether you need a product person and if so, what that person should look like.

 

Fig. 2 – Non-negotiable requirements when I hire product people:

• Having the customer at front of mind – Do you truly care about the customer and solving customer problems?
• Curiosity being a crucial driver – How curious are you to learn new things, to simply try things and learn?
• Focused on solving problems – Can you demonstrate an inner drive to discover and solve problems?
• Comfortable communicating up and down – Especially when things have gone wrong, and you have to explain things to people across the business, customers, suppliers, etc.
• Not afraid to make decisions, big or small – How do you prioritise? Demonstrate tough tradeoffs you’ve made? Which decisions did you get wrong and how did you come back from those?

Fig. 3 – The four types of product managers – Taken from: Elad Gil, High Growth Handbook, pp. 252 – 253:

1. Business product manager – These product managers are strongest at synthesising external requests into an internal product roadmap. Business product managers tend ton thrive at enterprise software  companies, or working on the partner-facing portions of consumer applications.
2. Technical product manager – Technical PMs are often (but not always) deeply technical people who can work with engineering on areas like infrastructure, search quality, machine learning, or other inward-facing work.
3. Design product manager – Most commonly found working on consumer applications, design-centric product managers are more user experience-centric. Some companies will convert a designer to be the product manager for a consumer product, just like they will convert an engineer into a technical product manager.
4. Growth product manager – Growth product managers tend to be quantitative, analytical, numbers-driven, and in the best cases wildly creative and aggressive. The focus of the growth product manager is to (1) determine the critical levers needed to drive product adoption and use, and then (2) to manipulate those levers.

 

Related links for further learning:

1. https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html
2. https://hbr.org/1965/11/exploit-the-product-life-cycle
3. https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/
4. http://growth.eladgil.com/book/chapter-7-product-management/characteristics-of-great-product-managers/
5. https://stripe.com/atlas/guides/building-a-great-pm-org