A recurring challenge that many Product Managers face is coping with stakeholders who attempt to block our efforts, either covertly or overtly. Sometimes these situations arise due to simple miscommunication, but other times they’re power plays, the results of internal politics, or even caused by grudges held from previous slights — real or imagined. To excel in Product Management, one must not only deal with these blockades as they arise, but you need to predict when, where, and how they’re likely to come up so that you can head them off before they even become an issue. To do that, though, we have to try to figure out what the most common reasons are for stakeholders to actively or passively interfere — and that’s what the Clever PM is here to share with you. In this first installment I’m going to focus on overcoming passive resistance, and we’ll address more active resistance in a future piece.
Archives for June 2017
How to “Level Up” Your Product Management Skillset
A common theme in online discussions and forums around Product Management lies in how to level up our skills and be a better Product Manager. While there are a lot of different options available, just as there are as many different aspects of Product Management to focus on, there are some very specific areas that any given Product Manager can assess themselves in and decide what next steps they want to take to become a better Product Manager.
How Accepting Uncertainty Drives Successful Teams
If you’ve been reading this blog for awhile, you’ve probably noticed that accepting uncertainty is a a recurring theme when it comes to Agile and agility. While it’s never stated outright as a “value” in either the Agile Manifesto or the Twelve Principles of Agile, the concept itself underlies many of the points made in those documents. In my opinion, it’s the primary cultural distinction between organizations that still cling to the old, outdated “waterfall” approaches. Waterfall creates a false sense of security by defining everything possible up-front. Agile accepts that we don’t always know everything, and that new information will not only be discovered, but might alter the path. Here are a few specific reasons why accepting uncertainty is essential for teams to be successful.
Why “Scrumbut” Shouldn’t Be a Bad Word
There’s a term that gets floated around the Agile world by what I like to call the “textbook Scrummers” that really bugs the crap out of me, so much that I decided to write an article about the concept, and why I think it’s a wrong-headed, anti-agile concept. The concept is known as “ScrumBut” (a shortened form of “We do Scrum, but…”) and as the folks at Scrum.org describe it:
ScrumButs are reasons why teams can’t take full advantage of Scrum to solve their problems and realize the full benefits of product development using Scrum.
In theory, this concept sounds harmless — after all, Scrum is a very specific methodology, with specific ceremonies and deliverables that are designed to achieve specific goals and specific benefits. The problem lies in the fact that these methods are not the only way to achieve those goals, though the companies who provide Scrum training would be loathe to admit it. Here are a few reasons why “ScrumBut” really isn’t as bad as those “textbook Scrummers” might have you believe…
Balancing Agility and Strategy
One of the common struggles that Product Managers are faced with is figuring out how to be “agile” while still managing to a vision or strategy that’s been established by the Executives or Board. The important thing to remember is that strategy and agility are not in conflict with one another — if a strategy is properly formed, it’s a long-term view of where you’re going, and not specific enough to tie your hands when approaching the execution side of things. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t tensions to be found in such a situation. Here are some thoughts on managing agility while executing against long-term plans…