A few years ago, I worked with a VP R&D who had a strange behavior: whenever I requested him for a time estimate for a development task, he gave me an estimate that was much bigger than what I thought was reasonable. Now that I wrote it that way, I bet some of you think it’s not such a strange behavior after all 😉 I had to look into it. At first, I thought it was because he didn’t understand what I was looking for and went for over-engineering. But talking to him made it clear that this wasn’t the case. I kept digging, and eventually, I realized what was the problem: whenever I asked for something, he made an effort to assign it to the most suitable person – one who has the most knowledge about the relevant area and the right technical skills. His reasoning was right – he wanted to make sure they spend as little as possible on each task so that we are able to achieve more with the limited resources we had. The problem, however, was that the best person was not always available for the job, and the VP R&D preferred to wait for them to finish their other tasks instead of assigning this new one to someone else who might be less suitable for the job. This, of course, led to creating a bottleneck around the best and most efficient people, created strict dependencies on specific people for certain tasks, and a slower time to market.
For example, if a task should take one week, but the best person will not be available for another two weeks – the assignment will be completed only three weeks later. However, if he passes it on to someone else, even if they are not the best person for the job and would have some learning curve, they may complete it in one and a half weeks. The VP R&D wasn’t doing it on purpose, he truly tried to do what he thought was best for the company given the limited resources we had, but in optimizing for development efficiency over time-to-market he actually hurt his ability to do what the company really needed.
In the past few weeks, I have received many questions from my consulting customers regarding how to optimize their time, probably because everyone is so busy with planning for the year that they have no time left for anything else. If you feel the same, here are a few advanced tips for you.
Manage Your Time, or Everyone Else Will
Product management is one of the busiest roles in a company. There is no point in denying it. Not only because it’s true, but also because in order to solve the problem, you must first acknowledge that it exists, or in other words: you will always have more to do than you can accomplish. That’s reality. And still, you need to make it work.
There has been much discussion over whether the product leader is the product’s CEO. Without getting into the weeds of whether or not you have the authority like a CEO does, I say that with everything related to responsibility – and therefore time management – this saying is true. Although they may not have the final say, as a product manager (and even more so as a product leader) you need to handle everything relating to the product, which includes both what falls directly into your normal job and everything else that doesn’t have a clear owner. Unfortunately for you, these are things that are truly needed in order to get the product to succeed and see results. So as a product person, you are left with two different jobs: the first is to lead the development of the product with everything it entails regularly, and the second is to handle everything else that is needed for the product to succeed. A busy role it is.
In such a reality, you must understand what you want to accomplish and stick with what leads there. Some of the items inside the no-other-owner list are urgent and need your attention immediately, but many are simply distractions. So that you don’t let others manage your time, YOU should be the one to decide what’s most essential and what you should work on. Never forget that you cannot do everything.
Be Comfortable Saying ‘No’
As cliché as it is, I will still say it: a product leader must be able to say NO.
We tend to do that rather easily in some areas. For example, when ‘the product’ says no (not us), like when the R&D resources are limited, and prioritization is required. However, it’s much harder for us to say no when it’s our own time and effort, not the developers’, that creates the problem.
Since what we really care about is product success and results, we don’t like to leave things unattended and try to cover all angles. But we, too, are just humans with no more than 24 hours a day (if you found a way around that let me know). So, while you may need to work off-hours occasionally, it is imperative that you don’t make it your default solution. This will result in an inevitable burnout which is not good for anyone. Trust me, if you tell your CEO that you can work like crazy now but won’t be able to continue with them a few months down the road, they will most likely not choose to simply let you go. But as long as you behave as if there is no problem with you working around the clock regularly, there is no reason for anyone to change anything. You need to start prioritizing, which means some things won’t get done. Keep in mind that your job is extremely demanding and that not getting everything done doesn’t mean a failure.
Once you acknowledge you can’t do it all, you need to say it out loud to the people who need things from you. But you need to manage it like a pro:
1. You can say you can’t do something now, but let them know when you will be able to do it (e.g., I can’t meet this week, but can it wait for next week?). By doing that, you are being specific, and you didn’t say no; you just asked them to postpone. That will usually be sufficient for your colleagues.
2. If it can’t wait until you are available, you can suggest other alternatives (e.g., if you need it this week, please talk directly to X).
3. When giving alternatives, be sure to explain the trade-offs clearly (e.g., if you talk to X, I won’t be able to monitor their work).
4. When appropriate, primarily with your manager, provide several options that work for you. You can consult with them and let them choose what’s more urgent. Share why you can’t do it this week, or what will need to be postponed if you do attend to it now instead of later. Use this bit cautiously, because on one hand you want to be transparent but on the other hand you don’t want to create an opening for people to manage your time instead of you.
Saying no is like a muscle. When it’s the developers’ time, you’re probably already trained to say no. Now it’s time to stop saying yes when it’s about your own time and effort. It gets easier, trust me. Start practicing, and your muscle will grow.
It Should Be a Real Team Effort
Our job as product leaders is to ensure that the company’s most valuable resource – the developers – is protected and used properly. But in modern times, the product manager herself is as important as the developers, and she is also scarce. Therefore, you need to protect yourself and ensure that you do what truly matters.
Notice though, that just because you are responsible for anything related to the product, all of the work should be on you. Your area of responsibility, too, should be a team effort.
To get there, divide your to-do list into three parts:
- Things that truly only you can, and should do, like strategic stuff such as talking (or listening) to customers, conducting market research or reviewing someone else’s research, defining strategy, and setting high-level priorities and requirements.
- Things that fall on your plate because no one else owns them, but don’t necessarily require your implementation or execution. While you are still responsible to get these done, you need to delegate them if other people can help here, and manage them instead of doing the work yourself. This category includes unexpected things, such as last-minute bugs that need your attention, or requests that you won’t be able to attend to right away (but still need to document). It could even involve negotiating contracts and dealing with legal and regulatory issues.
- Things that you would ideally do, but maybe someone else can take some of the load. Your usual duties, such as your work with the R&D team, fall into this category.
Since there are only 24 hours in a day and you cannot work 16-hour shifts for too long, you must allocate more time to (1) – at the expense of (2) and (3). That is how you manage your time.
Make your team a true partner in achieving what YOU need to achieve. Whether the team you work with is a pure R&D team or part of a multidisciplinary team, start breaking down the barriers between your work and theirs.
A typical product manager wears two hats: one where they make sure the product development team can work on the right things, move fast, and have everything they need so they are never blocked, and the other hat is where they are left to do the work that no one else wants to do.
To truly achieve more, you need to let your team help you accomplish your goals, exactly like you help them. Remove the barriers between the two hats. Let the team participate in (2) and (3) above. For example, when you have a legal issue that needs to be closed, you can find someone capable from the team (like a developer, analyst, designer, or UX person) who can help you complete it, and only bring it to you for approval.
Another example is when you need to prioritize something, you can ask your team to come up with a recommendation (the heavy lifting), so you can decide on the right approach more quickly.
Another thing to bear in mind when you’re too busy is to let the team know upfront that you won’t be able to give them the requirements in the detailed format they’re used to, and that they’ll need to step up and take some of the load.
Going back to the story from the beginning – this is exactly where you need to understand what you are optimizing for. If you optimize your time for supporting your team and never having them blocked, your full-time job will be just that, and you will find yourself left to deal with everything else that needs to be done “in your spare time”.
You must remember that what you do represents the product’s long-term business success. Start focusing on completing what matters to YOU, with the help of your team, and not the other way around.
