Anti-use cases 🚫, Is product art 🧑🎨 or science 🧑🔬?, Typical PLG failure points 😞, From hand-on to hands-off 🤝, and more
Weekly Roundup 18 - September 29, 2024
👋 Hey, Sam here! Welcome back to the 🔁 Weekly Roundup edition 🔁 of The Product Trench. Each week, I curate deep dives, trends and resources related to product management and leadership.
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Happy Sunday everyone! 😎
I rarely find it tricky to capture top product highlights from the community. This week was a tough one to crack though. There was lots of good content, so let’s get to it.
This Week's Roundup 🔁
How I use anti-use cases to set clear product expectations.
Where do we find joy?
5 tips to plan my career like I plan my product.
How to deliver bad news when it's not your fault.
From hands-on to hands-off.
Thoughts on work-life balance.
Crisis mode.
Typical PLG failure points in sales-led companies.
Is product art or science?
How systems thinking can transform your product strategy.
How I use anti-use cases to set clear product expectations (5 min read)
Anti-use cases—outlining problems your product won't solve—are a powerful tool to prevent misunderstandings between product, sales, and marketing teams. Product managers can set more explicit expectations by proactively defining these, especially for complex or buzzword-heavy technologies like AI. Anti-use cases should be embedded in strategic documents, GTM briefs, and training sessions to ensure alignment. They are especially helpful when team members overestimate product capabilities, helping prevent scope creep or unrealistic promises.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Integrate anti-use cases early in product planning to clearly communicate what your product won't solve. Use them in GTM briefs and product training to prevent misalignment across teams.
Where do we find joy? (4 min read)
Rich Mironov reflects on how product leaders can lose sight of joy amid daily firefighting and administrative tasks. He explains that true fulfillment often comes from building meaningful customer relationships, seeing the long-term impact of products, and celebrating team accomplishments. The day-to-day grind can drain energy, but moments of joy arise when product managers step back to appreciate the broader outcomes of their work.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Make time to reflect on long-term customer outcomes and team achievements, even when daily tasks feel overwhelming, to find joy and fulfillment in your work.
5 tips to plan my career like I plan my product (4 min read)
Ami Vora highlights how treating career growth like product development can drive improvement. It encourages setting clear goals, writing a "year in review" vision, including growth goals in performance reviews, reflecting on progress, seeking feedback, and iterating frequently. These strategies ensure you stay adaptable, measure success, and continuously evolve in your career.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Apply structured, iterative tactics to your career by setting clear goals, measuring progress, and pivoting when necessary, just like product management.
How to deliver bad news when it's not your fault (6 min read)
When delivering bad news, avoid using overly negative language, providing too many details, or accepting blame that's not yours, as these actions can harm your credibility. Get to the point quickly and emphasize the recipient's own agency in the situation. Keep the tone constructive to maintain trust and minimize emotional drama.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Present bad news clearly and without unnecessary negativity, focusing on shared responsibility to maintain trust and minimize emotional stress.
From hands-on to hands-off (4 min read)
As product teams grow more autonomous, product managers must shift from direct involvement to strategic leadership. This transition is driven by access to AI tools, specialized team members, and product-led growth strategies. Product managers should let teams self-manage, focusing on fostering collaboration, trust, and open communication. The key is moving from managing daily tasks to ensuring alignment on vision and strategy.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: When teams become self-sufficient, step back and guide them strategically by focusing on alignment, trust, and communication.
Thoughts on work-life balance (6 min read)
Work-life balance is an unrealistic concept, and instead, Elena Verna advocates for work-life prioritization. Life's priorities—work or personal—shift constantly, and trying to maintain an even split is counterproductive. Setting boundaries like fixed work hours, gym time, and travel limits can help protect personal priorities. Recognizing that career trade-offs evolve over time is key, and it's possible to negotiate personal space even early in your career.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Focus on prioritization, not balance. Protect key personal time through clear boundaries that align with your current priorities.
Crisis mode (7 min read)
Leah Tharin argues that it's crucial to focus on conserving energy, not just managing time. Outsourcing less important or draining tasks—even if they aren't done perfectly—helps preserve your focus on what matters most. Recognizing and addressing energy drains is essential for long-term productivity. Without actively resisting inefficiencies and burnout, organizations are unlikely to make necessary changes.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Prioritize conserving your energy by offloading non-critical tasks and addressing inefficient processes early to prevent burnout.
Typical PLG failure points in sales-led companies (7 min read)
Sales-led companies often struggle with Product-Led Growth (PLG) due to poor integration between sales and product. Misconceptions like relying solely on freemiums or avoiding sales early can lead to failure.
A hybrid approach between PLG and sales-led methods (Product-Led Sales) works best, combining self-service and sales-assisted strategies. Leaders must drive change and align teams, as balancing sales incentives and product priorities is critical.
Additionally, over-reliance on data can hinder necessary but unquantifiable decisions. Customer success teams, often ignored, hold vital insights for long-term revenue and product improvements.
With shifting market conditions pushing for profitability over growth, PLG requires careful planning and leadership buy-in.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: PLG isn't just about freemiums or data; build a cross-functional team with buy-in from leadership, prioritize customer success, and balance sales and product efforts to drive long-term success.
Is product art or science? (3 min read)
Product development combines the structure of science and the creativity of art. Teams typically follow scientific methods, testing and iterating ideas, but there is an artistic element—especially in design and user experience—where creativity adds desirability and beauty. While artists create for self-expression, product creators focus on delivering customer value, though both share common creative processes.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Embrace both creativity and structure in product development. Use scientific methods to test ideas, but don't forget the artistic elements that make products engaging and delightful for users.
How systems thinking can transform your product strategy (3 min read)
Systems thinking helps product managers assess the interrelationships between a product's components and the broader ecosystem in which it operates. This approach enables leaders to see beyond individual issues, revealing hidden connections and feedback loops that influence outcomes. By anticipating ripple effects and unintended consequences, product teams can create more resilient, long-term strategies that adapt to complex and dynamic environments. Systems thinking also helps avoid short-sighted decisions by encouraging holistic analysis of both internal and external factors.
⚡️Your Actionable Takeaway: Apply systems thinking to identify how different elements of your product ecosystem interact, allowing you to make informed, long-term decisions that strengthen overall strategy.
👋 That's it for this week's edition. Thank you for reading, and enjoy your week.
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— Sam ✌️
Many thought-provoking articles this week! The one on anti-use cases by Alex DeBecker was important for working with marketing.
Thank you for the shoutout!
Love the read on "how to deliver bad news", as a PM we usually have more "failures" than success so it's a masterclass on how to delivery it correctly.