(2017-10-27) Lonely Product Managers

I had a couple excellent working meetings recently (just 2 of us in each case), and realized that my current strategy-focused role had been leaving me feeling a little isolated, and that it had been true when I was more hands-on as well. I mentioned that to another Product Manager here and they agreed. Then mentioned it to a friend at a totally different place, and she also agreed.

A couple related reads:

• Five years ago I was that solo product manager at a London startup. I had over 15 years experience as a product manager, designer and developer but I was still completely alone, facing brand new challenges every day. Although I had a great relationship with the founders and the tech team, there was no one to talk to about product-specific challenges, no one to check new ideas with, and frankly no one to bitch to about what wasn’t working, as much as what was working. My response was to start a meetup for fellow PMs.
• It is crucial to find people who will listen to you talk about your work, who will try to understand you, and who will learn how to ask questions about your challenges. It’s easy to avoid talking about these things, but that’s a very lonely path, and great products are built by great teams.

This isn't about having someone to share kitten videos with, it's about increasing your satisfaction and output through Collaboration, esp when that allows you to Go Meta.

Some specific examples from my past

• At GoSeeDo/AEP I had frequent macro conversations with our awesome Community Manager Jeremy Williams and the founder Chris Elam. And occasional great sessions with our exec coach Kevin Crenshaw (who I later paid for a couple career/life coaching sessions). (Dev was offshore/outsourced.)
• At DailyLit, dev Cory Burke was a good idea-bouncer. (Most dev was offshore/outsourced.)
• At Living Independently our whole product team sat together, so I could easily talk to everyone or a sub-group of people (scheduled, not boss-interruptus) which I did every couple months (micro stuff way more often than that).

Some practices I've found helpful

• pairing with another PM. By trading working sessions, helping each other with your respective projects. Some topics/actions I've found helpful
  • rewriting the Shortest Viable Summary of a project/epic: what Problem/BottleNeck/JobToBeDone is this solving? Who feels this pain a lot right now?
  • are we doing/launching the Simplest Thing that could solve (or 80/20 improve) this Problem for that key User?
• having a Meta conversation with a developer on your team - does it feel like we're serving the customer, the business? Where should we be going, are we going in the right direction, are we going too slow? (If your team lacks any developers interested in such a conversation, you have a problem.)
• similar conversation with a designer

Try a tactic a couple times, and if promising, then schedule repeating event in your calendar!

How often?

• ??

(Some people/organizations fear Meta-Level conversations because they can slide into kvetching or wanking. Even without that it can feel unproductive, like Pair Programming can. This over-focus on short-term-pseudo-efficiency is a Dark Agile smell.)

I don't think conversations with someone outside your business are as likely to be useful because there's a lack of shared Context. On the other hand, keeping things really abstract can lead to some interesting inspirations, if not immediately actionable conclusions.

Other ideas?