Agency and Risk
We surrender agency to systems and people every day — when the risk reduction justifies it. Most AI gets this calculus wrong.
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Feeling Lost as a Product Manager
Read more →A mid-career identity crisis isn’t uncommon. The demands of a daily routine make it hard to focus on matching your activities with your role. If you’re feeling lost as a Product Manager, one way to reset your axis is to think about your interactions. Here are three that matter — and the downsides of focusing on one more than the others.
Builder — The group that builds your product, e.g. your Engineering or Architecture team. If you’ve been an engineer in the past, chances are you may hang out more with builders. Spend too much time here and you’ll get jazzed about building a science project that nobody wants to sell or use.
Seller — The group that sells your product, e.g. your sales or partner organization. If you have a background in sales, you might get trapped in sales incentives that are misaligned with users or builders (anything to make quota!!).
User — Your customers — the group that actually uses your product. If you spend all your time with customers, you might get trapped trying to build something nobody wants to build or sell.
To reset your axis, think about your interactions and work on getting them back in equilibrium. Ideally you spend equal time interacting with all three groups.
If you’re not interacting much with any of these groups, then you’re spending most of your time with other “stakeholders.” That’s not Product Management — but as long as you don’t feel lost, it’s not a bad place to be.
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