Suvagata Roy

There is a tension between predictability and ambition . So when working with leadership always try and set the right balance. A good thumb rule is to meet at least 80% of stated ambitions . Also there are times a manager chooses ambitious to show themselves in good light not caring about the team. So be very wary .

Every roadmap is a compromise. Well prioritised roadmaps make everyone equally happy and unhappy. Make sure your stakeholders understand that. Secondly , make your prioritisation criteria transparent and let them challenge the criteria. Do not let them challenge the order. Tell them if you want to change the roadmap lets agree on the criteria and rest will follow.

Remember that most jobs are with a company where the recruiter is also just an employee. They need to also be able to provide justification about numbers. In this case your aim should be to provide them rationale about why the offer doesn’t work. The more the evidence you provide the easier it is for them to work through . Evidence could be existing salary, benchmarks from market, calculations on how new job might have added costs. Everyone damages the dance and wants to get a number that works. So dance with your recruiter. help them help you.

Mid to senior PMs bring an unique perspective. They are out of the trenches so can see down - up and around. They are best placed to see a lot of misalignment and silos. So do listen to them. If you are on those PMs leverage this vision to show your importance to the company to solve important problems

The most important thing about tooling is to keep the number small. If you end up with too many free tools , it makes it harder to operate for the team. It requires more learning and overhead to use it welll. True, no tool will do everything. But then it’s also about saying No and working within the constraint of a tool as much as possible .

⚒️ Tools reduces the effort to get information 💡. But that’s where it ends. The role of a product manager is to take these information and decide what to build , why and when. Unless you are able to synthesise the information all of these tools are useless. So before you go deeper into the tools and techniques, start backwards. Hone your muscle of utilising data. Then get into all of these .