(2024-01-07) Singer Whats The Unit Of Impact

Ryan Singer: What's the unit of impact? Product Managers often prioritize work by something called "impact." But too often what a PM considered "high impact" doesn't get a green light from leadership.

A big piece of this problem is we don't know what 'impact' really means

Sometimes, it's about money.

Sometimes, it's about buzz.

Sometimes, it's about morale.

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And sometimes, it's about buying time. Suppose we've got something big in terms of $ or buzz in mind, but it needs more time to shape. Meanwhile, the teams still need work to do. So we may choose things that are smaller optimizations in the above categories — not necessarily big wins. Hmm is this feed the beast anti-pattern?

As leaders, it helps to be more explicit about why we're doing something

For those who know Shaping in Real Life (Shape Up), this belongs in the topic of framing. When we frame a potential project, we need to both define the problem and make the case for investing in it. Those different dimensions — money, buzz, morale, time — are about building our case.