A lot of people depend on me.
Specifically, they depend on the decisions I make.
I am a product leader. Every decision I make defines what multiple teams work on.
It defines what we focus on as a group.
It defines how successful the product, the company, and the people who work in the company will be.
Long story short: most decisions that we make as PMs lead to significant impact—sometimes good, sometimes bad. That is why it is important to make good decisions.
But you already knew this.
The one thing (that you might not know) is that making these decisions—especially when you know that they will have wide and long run impact—is not easy.
Three things make it tough:
Ambiguity: most decisions we make are made without the perfect information. We don’t have the information to know if our decision is the best one or not. Most decisions have multiple assumptions baked into them.
No right answer: there is never a right answer. You give the same problem to two different product leaders, they will both have different answers. And both of them will be right. This makes it even tougher to make good decisions.
Low / no past benchmarks: the more senior you are the more novel the decisions. Most situations that you encounter in your business, company, and context have not happened in the past. There is no learning or past data to go by.
But just because it’s tough to make these decisions, does that mean we stop making them? Obviously not!
Here are a few tricks I use whenever I’m making critical decisions.
What I’m reading:
Enterprise Philosophy and The First Wave of AI: “A computer on every desk and in every home” as a corporate goal, is the fact that Microsoft accomplished it, with help from its longtime competitor Apple.
Supercommunicators (Book): The biggest mistake we make is to assume that communication has taken place (even when it hasn’t.) This book teaches you how to make “successful” communication happen.
Made to stick (Book): The best ways to share ideas and stories and thoughts in a way that people really listen and understand.
(These are not affiliate links. I am reading these books and absolutely loving them.)
#1 Simplify Everything
Most problems that I’m solving are complex. They’re not straight forward. I have not solved them in the past.
While I might not have all the information about the solution, I can definitely find more information about the problem. That is what I do—I start by breaking down the problem into the fundamental truths, facts, or principles.
The moment you start breaking down the problem, you start seeing the hidden aspects of the problem. And some of these hidden things(which are not always very obvious) might give you more information that will enable you to find a better solution.
This is also called First Principle Thinking. Another great method (that I use very often) to simplify complex things is the Feynman's technique
#2 Focus on The Problem (Not The Solution)
Most bad decisions that I’ve made have been because I was too focused on the solution.
You could either spend your time improving the solutions you’ve already thought of. Or you could ensure that you’re solving the right problems (and then find a good solution.)
Us, as humans, are always eager to do something and that is why we want to think of a solution and start building it. Building it gives us something to do.
Whereas thinking and rethinking about the problem requires us to sit quietly and THINK. And we hate to think.
In such situations, I force myself to think. And while thinking, I answer the question: “What is the real problem we’re solving?” I keep asking it till the time I’m sure I know the root problem to solve.
And until then—until I know the real problem—I do not talk about or let others discuss anything about the solution.
#3 Remember The Customer And Their Needs
Some decisions consume you so much that you forget the customer.
I keep re-focusing my teams to think about the customer. Understand what the customer needs. Then, and only then, make your decision.
Amazon's Working Backwards method also helps in making this more tactical and structured.
#4 Second Order Thinking
When making critical decisions, it's essential to think about the impact of your decision holistically, and not just what's happening right now. If you only focus on the immediate impact, you will miss important information and make mistakes.
For example, let's say you're a Uber product manager and have just added a new feature that tells drivers when and where demand is highest. Before making any decisions, consider how this feature will affect drivers and passengers in the long run.
First-order thinking:
Drivers will optimise their schedule to be available at the right place during the peak hours (in the hope of getting more rides and earning more.)
Second-order thinking:
As more and more drivers (in a given location) get access to this information, all of them become available during the "peak hours." This leads to oversupply during those hours. All of a sudden, the peak hours are not peak any more.
As a result, other locations, which had low-moderate demand, will have no supply of drivers. That leads to frustrated customers (who are left waiting for a ride!)
So, the drivers, who were expecting to earn more, are earning less because they are now competing with a larger pool of drivers. The riders who are waiting for cabs in low demand areas are still waiting.
This leads to churn, low ratings, and a net negative impact for the ecosystem.
See where this is going?
Always consider the second and third-order impact when making decisions. This will give you a complete understanding of the full impact of any action. Which will help you make better decisions.
#5 Think Out of The Box / Think Big
Sometimes you need to think differently.
One technique that pushes me to do this is asking a questions along the lines of: “How can I achieve my 10-year plan in the next 6 months?” or “Why 2x our revenue next year, why not 200x it?”
I hope you get the drift.
The point is that such questions impose extreme constraints to the situation.
And the moment that happens, people start getting creative. People start thinking of ideas, that they would never think in a business as usual situation.
With that said, there is no perfect or single formula that helps make better decisions. These tricks work for me. They might or might not for you. That is why it is important to create your own toolkit.
Everyone has a very unique and different thinking process. So understand your thinking process and create methods that work for you.
No matter what you do, be sure to learn with every decision.
Every decision could either be right or wrong. And in both cases, you can learn what to do and not to do the next time you’re in a similar situation.
And when you’ve done it for 5+ years, maybe you will write this article and share how you do it!
P.S. We’re having a masterclass tomorrow (Saturday 28th Sep) at 12PM London time. We’ll be discussing Product Vision, Strategy, Roadmap—what they are, what is the difference, why are they important, and how to create them! We also have exciting gifts worth $500 that you can win IF YOU ATTEND the event. You can read more details and sign up here.