Jekyll2022-11-24T04:42:55+00:00/feed.xmlNeeraj HiraniWritings on products, design & startups.Operationalising Product Meetings2022-09-21T13:50:32+00:002022-09-21T13:50:32+00:00/2022/09/21/operationalising-meetings<p><strong>Note:</strong> The below advice mainly holds good for mid to large orgs where multiple PMs handle different parts of a larger product (mostly in a B2B product environment).</p>
<p>Most junior PMs gravitate towards focusing on execution. In large companies, their scope is usually limited to a feature area or a problem area or a segment. So in their mind, interactions with engineers, designers and data analysts form a major part of their job. Activities like sprint planning, scrum ceremonies, backlog management, priorities take up a major portion of their time.</p>
<p>In the absence of structure, PMs end up de-emphasising important work like interacting with users, customers, and customer-facing stakeholders. It is very easy to get absorbed in the day-to-day minutia of work. Important interactions tend to get easily sidelined. This leads to sourcing product ideas top-down, leaving users unheard and under-represented.</p>
<p>Every PM knows they should:</p>
<ul>
<li>Conduct customer and problem discovery sessions on an ongoing basis</li>
<li>Have regular conversations with their product’s users</li>
<li>Seek clarity and align on business goals</li>
<li>Get feedback from customer facing stakeholders</li>
<li>Build relationships with team members, and</li>
<li>Stay on top of what’s going on in the market.</li>
</ul>
<p>Left to their own devices, very few PMs make the effort to have these conversations consistently. Even if some PMs are having these conversations, they do so in isolation. This doesn’t help improve the effectiveness of the team.</p>
<p>The Product team is a single organism. It should operate like one. It doesn’t help if some folks are operating towards realising a grand vision while others are only thinking as far as the next release.</p>
<p>As a manager of Product Managers, one of the best ways you can help your team succeed is by adding guard-rails that can help all PMs in your team, new and experienced, function as one organism.</p>
<p>One place to start is by helping systematise their calendar. You can do this by setting an operating cadence for important meetings. This single action has streamlined so many things for us. We now work together as a unit, by combined action.</p>
<p>Given below are meetings we have with other stakeholder teams as a group.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>Customer facing Stakeholders</th>
<th>Meeting Frequency</th>
<th>Purpose</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Internal Roadmap presentation to the entire company</td>
<td>Quarterly - within 2 weeks from end of Quarter - 90 minutes</td>
<td>Present work done in the present quarter and showcase roadmap for next quarter</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Sales</td>
<td>Bi-monthly - 2nd Monday - 1 hour</td>
<td>Align on asks, get feedback and insights from the field</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Pre-sales</td>
<td>Bi-weekly - 2nd and 4th Tuesdays - 45 minutes</td>
<td>Feedback from prospects (pre-conversion)</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Product Marketing</td>
<td>Bi-weekly - Individual PM & PMKt Mgr connect - 30 minutes; Monthly - Group meeting with VPs - 1 hour</td>
<td>Competitive landscape, Market outlook, Pricing discussions, Product/Feature launches</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Success teams (Account managers)</td>
<td>Monthly - Last Monday - 45 minutes</td>
<td>Feedback from Customers, Risks, Success stories, churn preventive measures</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Implementation & Enablement</td>
<td>Every 2 months - 1st Thursday - 45 minutes</td>
<td>Pain-points during new deployments, First impressions from users, Feedback on Governance & Administrative sections</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Customer Support</td>
<td>Monthly - 1st Wednesday - 1 hour</td>
<td>Getting on top of customer issues</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Strategic Services</td>
<td>Monthly - 2nd Tuesday - 45 minutes</td>
<td>Feedback from internal power users</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PMs and Design group sync</td>
<td>Weekly - 1 hour</td>
<td>Learning (sharing data), Brainstorming</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Product Ops & GTM</td>
<td>Monthly - 1 hour</td>
<td>Communicating launch status, Building consensus and support</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PM - all hands</td>
<td>Weekly - 45 minutes</td>
<td>Align on updates, plans, dependencies</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>All of these meetings are already on the calendar of all PMs in my team. It has helped us in many ways:</p>
<ul>
<li>Internally, within the product team, we now operate as one coordinated team rather than individuals thrashing in different directions. Meeting as a group brings efficiency as all PMs and required stakeholders can surface dependencies, deliberate on solutioning and align together faster.</li>
<li>We choose topics of discussion beforehand and come into meetings prepared. When it comes to new requests, SMEs now have a focused forum to connect with product. Being around experienced SMEs (sales, marketing, support, etc.) helps us look at things from a specific SME group’s lens. We learn new things from them and can then piece all the knowledge from this, and previous calls together. It gives us a far broader perspective than most SME’s have.</li>
<li>Our updates on new releases, feature education or communication about delays go out to all stakeholders with a unified voice.This helps us build credibility.</li>
<li>We have lesser interruptions, have more time to do “think work” and are not operating in reactive mode.</li>
</ul>
<p>Below are examples of meetings that I advocate each PMs have individually or with their squads.</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr>
<th>PM Meetings</th>
<th>Meeting Frequency</th>
<th>Purpose</th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Standups</td>
<td>Daily - 15 minutes</td>
<td>Unblocking engineers and design</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Data analytics</td>
<td>Monthly - 3rd Wednesday - 1 hour</td>
<td>Closer alignment on usage tracking, KPIs, Feature usage metrics, Experiments, Red flag callouts</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Documentation</td>
<td>Monthly - 1st Thursday - 30 minutes</td>
<td>Communicating status around upcoming feature launches, product education and feedback on WIP documents</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PMs grooming with Design/Engineering</td>
<td>Weekly - 1 hour</td>
<td>Ensure everyone on the squad is familiar with at least the next 5 prioritised items on the backlog</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Retros</td>
<td>Bi-weekly - 30 minutes</td>
<td>Evaluate past work cycle</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PMs & Engineering Managers Group</td>
<td>Weekly - 1 hour</td>
<td>Planning priorities and capacity</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Internal Demos with all Engineering staff</td>
<td>Monthly - 60 minutes</td>
<td>Internal demos showcasing recently shipped work</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1:1 PM and Product Director meeting</td>
<td>Weekly - 30 minutes</td>
<td>Voice issues, Career growth</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1:1 PM & Eng Manager connect</td>
<td>Weekly - 30 minutes</td>
<td>Team health, Brainstorms and updates</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>1:1 Skip-level meeting - PM and Product VP meeting</td>
<td>Monthly - 30 minutes</td>
<td>Career growth, Align on strategic direction and priorities</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>PMs Backlog Management</td>
<td>Weekly - 1 hour</td>
<td>Collate all feedback / inputs from Slack / Community forum on a weekly basis</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>This method of operationalising meetings has helped set up our team for success.</p>
<p>You can adapt it too. It adds just the right amount of structure for any team.</p>
<p>Obviously, this alone won’t help your PMs succeed. They still need to ensure that they’re showing up, contributing actively, being honest about what they don’t understand, and being reliable.</p>
<p>Through regular touch-points, your PMs can build up a positive reputation, and easily exercise influence, even without authority.</p>
<p><strong>Some more notes:</strong></p>
<ul>
<li>Since these are recurring meetings, we have attached separate google sheets in the invites for each of them. Meeting participants need to list out agenda items, questions, inputs and comments beforehand. This keeps discussions focused.</li>
<li>Where it is needed, we try to send out pre-reads so that stakeholders can have richer discussions as everyone has enough context beforehand.</li>
<li>We actively clear the deck of meetings we don’t need. Sometimes we don’t have new things to discuss. We are already aligned. On those occasions, we choose to cancel that instance of the meeting.</li>
<li>All PMs have similar times at which “No meeting hours” are pencilled in their calendar.</li>
</ul>Note: The below advice mainly holds good for mid to large orgs where multiple PMs handle different parts of a larger product (mostly in a B2B product environment). Most junior PMs gravitate towards focusing on execution. In large companies, their scope is usually limited to a feature area or a problem area or a segment. So in their mind, interactions with engineers, designers and data analysts form a major part of their job. Activities like sprint planning, scrum ceremonies, backlog management, priorities take up a major portion of their time. In the absence of structure, PMs end up de-emphasising important work like interacting with users, customers, and customer-facing stakeholders. It is very easy to get absorbed in the day-to-day minutia of work. Important interactions tend to get easily sidelined. This leads to sourcing product ideas top-down, leaving users unheard and under-represented. Every PM knows they should: Conduct customer and problem discovery sessions on an ongoing basis Have regular conversations with their product’s users Seek clarity and align on business goals Get feedback from customer facing stakeholders Build relationships with team members, and Stay on top of what’s going on in the market. Left to their own devices, very few PMs make the effort to have these conversations consistently. Even if some PMs are having these conversations, they do so in isolation. This doesn’t help improve the effectiveness of the team. The Product team is a single organism. It should operate like one. It doesn’t help if some folks are operating towards realising a grand vision while others are only thinking as far as the next release. As a manager of Product Managers, one of the best ways you can help your team succeed is by adding guard-rails that can help all PMs in your team, new and experienced, function as one organism. One place to start is by helping systematise their calendar. You can do this by setting an operating cadence for important meetings. This single action has streamlined so many things for us. We now work together as a unit, by combined action. Given below are meetings we have with other stakeholder teams as a group. Customer facing Stakeholders Meeting Frequency Purpose Internal Roadmap presentation to the entire company Quarterly - within 2 weeks from end of Quarter - 90 minutes Present work done in the present quarter and showcase roadmap for next quarter Sales Bi-monthly - 2nd Monday - 1 hour Align on asks, get feedback and insights from the field Pre-sales Bi-weekly - 2nd and 4th Tuesdays - 45 minutes Feedback from prospects (pre-conversion) Product Marketing Bi-weekly - Individual PM & PMKt Mgr connect - 30 minutes; Monthly - Group meeting with VPs - 1 hour Competitive landscape, Market outlook, Pricing discussions, Product/Feature launches Success teams (Account managers) Monthly - Last Monday - 45 minutes Feedback from Customers, Risks, Success stories, churn preventive measures Implementation & Enablement Every 2 months - 1st Thursday - 45 minutes Pain-points during new deployments, First impressions from users, Feedback on Governance & Administrative sections Customer Support Monthly - 1st Wednesday - 1 hour Getting on top of customer issues Strategic Services Monthly - 2nd Tuesday - 45 minutes Feedback from internal power users PMs and Design group sync Weekly - 1 hour Learning (sharing data), Brainstorming Product Ops & GTM Monthly - 1 hour Communicating launch status, Building consensus and support PM - all hands Weekly - 45 minutes Align on updates, plans, dependencies All of these meetings are already on the calendar of all PMs in my team. It has helped us in many ways: Internally, within the product team, we now operate as one coordinated team rather than individuals thrashing in different directions. Meeting as a group brings efficiency as all PMs and required stakeholders can surface dependencies, deliberate on solutioning and align together faster. We choose topics of discussion beforehand and come into meetings prepared. When it comes to new requests, SMEs now have a focused forum to connect with product. Being around experienced SMEs (sales, marketing, support, etc.) helps us look at things from a specific SME group’s lens. We learn new things from them and can then piece all the knowledge from this, and previous calls together. It gives us a far broader perspective than most SME’s have. Our updates on new releases, feature education or communication about delays go out to all stakeholders with a unified voice.This helps us build credibility. We have lesser interruptions, have more time to do “think work” and are not operating in reactive mode. Below are examples of meetings that I advocate each PMs have individually or with their squads. PM Meetings Meeting Frequency Purpose Standups Daily - 15 minutes Unblocking engineers and design Data analytics Monthly - 3rd Wednesday - 1 hour Closer alignment on usage tracking, KPIs, Feature usage metrics, Experiments, Red flag callouts Documentation Monthly - 1st Thursday - 30 minutes Communicating status around upcoming feature launches, product education and feedback on WIP documents PMs grooming with Design/Engineering Weekly - 1 hour Ensure everyone on the squad is familiar with at least the next 5 prioritised items on the backlog Retros Bi-weekly - 30 minutes Evaluate past work cycle PMs & Engineering Managers Group Weekly - 1 hour Planning priorities and capacity Internal Demos with all Engineering staff Monthly - 60 minutes Internal demos showcasing recently shipped work 1:1 PM and Product Director meeting Weekly - 30 minutes Voice issues, Career growth 1:1 PM & Eng Manager connect Weekly - 30 minutes Team health, Brainstorms and updates 1:1 Skip-level meeting - PM and Product VP meeting Monthly - 30 minutes Career growth, Align on strategic direction and priorities PMs Backlog Management Weekly - 1 hour Collate all feedback / inputs from Slack / Community forum on a weekly basis This method of operationalising meetings has helped set up our team for success. You can adapt it too. It adds just the right amount of structure for any team. Obviously, this alone won’t help your PMs succeed. They still need to ensure that they’re showing up, contributing actively, being honest about what they don’t understand, and being reliable. Through regular touch-points, your PMs can build up a positive reputation, and easily exercise influence, even without authority. Some more notes: Since these are recurring meetings, we have attached separate google sheets in the invites for each of them. Meeting participants need to list out agenda items, questions, inputs and comments beforehand. This keeps discussions focused. Where it is needed, we try to send out pre-reads so that stakeholders can have richer discussions as everyone has enough context beforehand. We actively clear the deck of meetings we don’t need. Sometimes we don’t have new things to discuss. We are already aligned. On those occasions, we choose to cancel that instance of the meeting. All PMs have similar times at which “No meeting hours” are pencilled in their calendar.Reflections from 20212021-12-31T14:10:32+00:002021-12-31T14:10:32+00:00/2021/12/31/reflections-from-2021<p>This year went by in a flash. I want to assess it across five dimensions - Career, Education, Health, Financial, and Personal.</p>
<h2 id="career">Career:</h2>
<ul>
<li>On the career front, I left OnMobile in April and joined Khoros.</li>
<li>Why I left OnMobile is a post I will reserve for another day. I now handle the “Social Listening” capabilities within the Marketing suite of products at Khoros. I am being challenged in ways I never have before and this presents opportunities to learn, expand and grow. I am excited about how this plays out in 2022. More work related writing will find its way here in 2022. I intend to crush it at work. I want to make a dent here.</li>
<li>I want to be more deliberate with my writing. Instead of aiming for perfection, I am going to string together quicker thoughts and hit publish more often in 2022. Shipped imperfect writing is better than an unpublished grave of drafts.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="education">Education:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Although I had ambitions to read a lot, I ended up reading very few books this year.</li>
<li>Over the years, I have acquired way more books than I will read in my lifetime. I am going to hold myself accountable here and ensure that I don’t buy more, but read what I have first. The few books I read this year include:
<ul>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.in/Leviathan-Wakes-Expanse-James-Corey/dp/0316129089/" target="\_blank">Leviathan Wakes - by James A. Corey</a> (also watched the show - the book and the show go really well together)</li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.in/Exponential-accelerating-technology-transforming-business/dp/1847942911/ref=sr_1_1?crid=16Q6PKVDAU790&keywords=azeem+azhar&qid=1640973299&sprefix=azeem+azhar%2Caps%2C310&sr=8-1" target="\_blank">Exponential - by Azeem Azhar</a></li>
<li><a href="https://www.amazon.in/Five-Dysfunctions-Team-Leadership-Lencioni-ebook/dp/B006960LQW/ref=sr_1_1_sspa?keywords=five+dysfunctions+of+a+team+book&qid=1640973337&sprefix=five+dy%2Caps%2C321&sr=8-1-spons&psc=1&spLa=ZW5jcnlwdGVkUXVhbGlmaWVyPUExSzYzNlMzMzRXNk5NJmVuY3J5cHRlZElkPUEwODk4NDY4MkhaSUkxNjBZUVI2TiZlbmNyeXB0ZWRBZElkPUEwMTg1MzY4MTU3RVVSMUY4R1gwOSZ3aWRnZXROYW1lPXNwX2F0ZiZhY3Rpb249Y2xpY2tSZWRpcmVjdCZkb05vdExvZ0NsaWNrPXRydWU=" target="\_blank">The 5 dysfunctions of a team - by Patrick Lencioni</a></li>
</ul>
</li>
<li>I leveled up my product chops with a few courses in 2021 (more on these in future posts):
<ul>
<li>Mixpanel x Servian Product Analytics Mastery Course in February</li>
<li><a href="https://maven.com/anshumani/midcareer-product-management" target="\_blank">Surviving and Thriving in Product Management</a> by Anshumani Ruddra in July</li>
<li><a href="https://www.growthx.club/" target="\_blank">GrowthX</a> (Product & Growth Bootcamp) - GX6 in September</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="health">Health:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Although I started off strong (about 4 workouts every 7 days, for about 6 months), I ended up doing little to no exercising in the second half of the year. This has reflected in my constitution - I now weigh more than I ever have in my life. I eat out often and my meals tend to be heavy. I go on my occasional long walks, but clearly, that isn’t enough. I need to curb my food cravings and become more disciplined. Swiggy and Zomato, I love you, but you need to go!</li>
<li>We got double vaccinated by June and (touchwood) remained COVID free in 2021. My in-laws, however, caught it in April-May and it took a severe toll on them. This was at a time when Delhi was in terrible shape (No hospital beds were available, there was an acute shortage of oxygen cylinders and medicines - and there were curfews everywhere). My wife handled their care remotely from Bangalore. This was a difficult phase to navigate with all the anxiety and uncertainty.</li>
<li>I spent a lot of my time mindlessly scrolling through Twitter and Instagram this year - way more than I would’ve liked and this affected my mental health. My mind would be dreaming about the future or worrying about the past. I was not present in conversations. My wife pointed this out to me on several occasions - I thought about this a little this week - It all stemmed from boredom, FOMO, jealousy, anxiety. To improve in 2022, I have uninstalled Instagram, but haven’t yet mustered enough courage to remove Twitter.</li>
<li>Becoming serious about my health is going to be a big part of my 2022. It is my #1 priority for the year. I want to be physically and mentally healthy.
<ul>
<li>I will workout more often and stay disciplined. The long walks will continue at their natural cadence. I will be more conscious of meal portions. My target weight is 78 kgs (I am at 95 kgs now).</li>
<li>I have set usage limits on apps. I won’t look at my phone when I am not supposed to - Rather than actively chasing new information from my Twitter feed, I’ll leave it to serendipity and let information find me. My efforts to learn in 2022 will be from long form content - reading books. My target is 30 pages a day.</li>
<li>I have had success with breathing exercises in the past. It made me less anxious (time to dust the cobwebs off of my Headspace subscription).</li>
</ul>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="financial">Financial:</h2>
<ul>
<li>Switching jobs helped, but despite that, I always felt I was always short of money. I can’t pin it down exactly. I invested in myself a little this year (buying all those books and courses). I bought myself a new MacBook Pro (Max Pro). I placed a few bets (I put money into a startup). I also invested a little in SGBs. And bore the usual expenses - LIC, PPF, child’s school fees. It still felt like I was playing catch-up for the most part. Everyone around me was pumping money into Crypto and NFTs and my Twitter feed was filled with stories of folks becoming paper millionaires. The FOMO was real.</li>
<li>I feel I ought to get more disciplined with my spending - especially on food - I now log my daily expenses - no matter how small - and I’m trying to get a better handle on knowing my outflows. I expect money spent on books will go down in 2022 and so will food.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="personal">Personal:</h2>
<ul>
<li>I lost my dad in March. This event pretty much defined 2021 for me. It was a rude shock. It came out of the blue and left us filled with grief and emptiness. I won’t go into much more details here as this loss is still tough for me to process. It weighed us all down as a family.</li>
<li>To add to this, I also lost a good friend to COVID - about a month after my dad’s passing. Talking to his brother about how to book a spot at the crematorium refreshed wounds from my dad’s loss. March and April were dark and tough times.</li>
<li>My mother got to visit my sister in the US in November. This offered her a chance to experience a change of surroundings and offered us (me and my wife) the chance to level up and become more responsible in running the house. We did this alongside managing demanding work hours and a young toddler. This experience has made us more disciplined, brought us closer and given us the confidence to face things we thought we couldn’t before.</li>
<li>My wife has been a wonderful support system and balancing force - There’s a saying that too much of something is bad for you - She has been that corrective gravitational pull that ensures I don’t over index on other pursuits like work and prioritize family matters as well. She’s also been very supportive and courageous. I don’t vocalize this enough. In 2022, I will appreciate her more for the wonderful person that she is</li>
<li>My daughter has been a great teacher. She is teaching me how to be more patient and giving - She gives her love so abundantly to me, even when I am short on patience. We have been bonding over Avengers. I love her dearly. In 2022, I will be more patient and more kind to her.</li>
<li>My mother has always been my rock, but this March, I saw her at her most vulnerable. As she gets older, I want to be the support she has been to me. In 2022, I will spend more time with her. I will take more photographs with her and shoot selfie videos of us saying silly nothings.</li>
<li>I did a terrible job of keeping in touch with my friends in 2021. I forgot birthdays, hardly met any friends and didn’t really keep tabs on them. 2021 was a difficult year for most. I came across as self-absorbed. I will be more deliberate in reaching out to them. I will try to be a better friend in 2022.</li>
</ul>
<p>No matter how hard this last year has been, here we are. With another chance. For this, I have nothing but gratitude. I am beginning again with new hopes, renewed energy and aspirations, and I hope <em>you</em> do so too. May 2022 be your best year yet. Happy New Year!</p>This year went by in a flash. I want to assess it across five dimensions - Career, Education, Health, Financial, and Personal. Career: On the career front, I left OnMobile in April and joined Khoros. Why I left OnMobile is a post I will reserve for another day. I now handle the “Social Listening” capabilities within the Marketing suite of products at Khoros. I am being challenged in ways I never have before and this presents opportunities to learn, expand and grow. I am excited about how this plays out in 2022. More work related writing will find its way here in 2022. I intend to crush it at work. I want to make a dent here. I want to be more deliberate with my writing. Instead of aiming for perfection, I am going to string together quicker thoughts and hit publish more often in 2022. Shipped imperfect writing is better than an unpublished grave of drafts. Education: Although I had ambitions to read a lot, I ended up reading very few books this year. Over the years, I have acquired way more books than I will read in my lifetime. I am going to hold myself accountable here and ensure that I don’t buy more, but read what I have first. The few books I read this year include: Leviathan Wakes - by James A. Corey (also watched the show - the book and the show go really well together) Exponential - by Azeem Azhar The 5 dysfunctions of a team - by Patrick Lencioni I leveled up my product chops with a few courses in 2021 (more on these in future posts): Mixpanel x Servian Product Analytics Mastery Course in February Surviving and Thriving in Product Management by Anshumani Ruddra in July GrowthX (Product & Growth Bootcamp) - GX6 in September Health: Although I started off strong (about 4 workouts every 7 days, for about 6 months), I ended up doing little to no exercising in the second half of the year. This has reflected in my constitution - I now weigh more than I ever have in my life. I eat out often and my meals tend to be heavy. I go on my occasional long walks, but clearly, that isn’t enough. I need to curb my food cravings and become more disciplined. Swiggy and Zomato, I love you, but you need to go! We got double vaccinated by June and (touchwood) remained COVID free in 2021. My in-laws, however, caught it in April-May and it took a severe toll on them. This was at a time when Delhi was in terrible shape (No hospital beds were available, there was an acute shortage of oxygen cylinders and medicines - and there were curfews everywhere). My wife handled their care remotely from Bangalore. This was a difficult phase to navigate with all the anxiety and uncertainty. I spent a lot of my time mindlessly scrolling through Twitter and Instagram this year - way more than I would’ve liked and this affected my mental health. My mind would be dreaming about the future or worrying about the past. I was not present in conversations. My wife pointed this out to me on several occasions - I thought about this a little this week - It all stemmed from boredom, FOMO, jealousy, anxiety. To improve in 2022, I have uninstalled Instagram, but haven’t yet mustered enough courage to remove Twitter. Becoming serious about my health is going to be a big part of my 2022. It is my #1 priority for the year. I want to be physically and mentally healthy. I will workout more often and stay disciplined. The long walks will continue at their natural cadence. I will be more conscious of meal portions. My target weight is 78 kgs (I am at 95 kgs now). I have set usage limits on apps. I won’t look at my phone when I am not supposed to - Rather than actively chasing new information from my Twitter feed, I’ll leave it to serendipity and let information find me. My efforts to learn in 2022 will be from long form content - reading books. My target is 30 pages a day. I have had success with breathing exercises in the past. It made me less anxious (time to dust the cobwebs off of my Headspace subscription). Financial: Switching jobs helped, but despite that, I always felt I was always short of money. I can’t pin it down exactly. I invested in myself a little this year (buying all those books and courses). I bought myself a new MacBook Pro (Max Pro). I placed a few bets (I put money into a startup). I also invested a little in SGBs. And bore the usual expenses - LIC, PPF, child’s school fees. It still felt like I was playing catch-up for the most part. Everyone around me was pumping money into Crypto and NFTs and my Twitter feed was filled with stories of folks becoming paper millionaires. The FOMO was real. I feel I ought to get more disciplined with my spending - especially on food - I now log my daily expenses - no matter how small - and I’m trying to get a better handle on knowing my outflows. I expect money spent on books will go down in 2022 and so will food. Personal: I lost my dad in March. This event pretty much defined 2021 for me. It was a rude shock. It came out of the blue and left us filled with grief and emptiness. I won’t go into much more details here as this loss is still tough for me to process. It weighed us all down as a family. To add to this, I also lost a good friend to COVID - about a month after my dad’s passing. Talking to his brother about how to book a spot at the crematorium refreshed wounds from my dad’s loss. March and April were dark and tough times. My mother got to visit my sister in the US in November. This offered her a chance to experience a change of surroundings and offered us (me and my wife) the chance to level up and become more responsible in running the house. We did this alongside managing demanding work hours and a young toddler. This experience has made us more disciplined, brought us closer and given us the confidence to face things we thought we couldn’t before. My wife has been a wonderful support system and balancing force - There’s a saying that too much of something is bad for you - She has been that corrective gravitational pull that ensures I don’t over index on other pursuits like work and prioritize family matters as well. She’s also been very supportive and courageous. I don’t vocalize this enough. In 2022, I will appreciate her more for the wonderful person that she is My daughter has been a great teacher. She is teaching me how to be more patient and giving - She gives her love so abundantly to me, even when I am short on patience. We have been bonding over Avengers. I love her dearly. In 2022, I will be more patient and more kind to her. My mother has always been my rock, but this March, I saw her at her most vulnerable. As she gets older, I want to be the support she has been to me. In 2022, I will spend more time with her. I will take more photographs with her and shoot selfie videos of us saying silly nothings. I did a terrible job of keeping in touch with my friends in 2021. I forgot birthdays, hardly met any friends and didn’t really keep tabs on them. 2021 was a difficult year for most. I came across as self-absorbed. I will be more deliberate in reaching out to them. I will try to be a better friend in 2022. No matter how hard this last year has been, here we are. With another chance. For this, I have nothing but gratitude. I am beginning again with new hopes, renewed energy and aspirations, and I hope you do so too. May 2022 be your best year yet. Happy New Year!Atomic habits - James Clear2021-11-23T07:57:25+00:002021-11-23T07:57:25+00:00/notes/2021/11/23/atomic-habitsAre you a Now person or a When person?2020-11-24T14:10:32+00:002020-11-24T14:10:32+00:00/2020/11/24/now-person-or-when-person<p>One day, way back in 2015, when I was working at Mu Sigma, the company CEO, Dhiraj Rajaram was addressing a room of over a hundred people.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>“Are you a ‘Now’ person or a ‘When’ person?,” he asked.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Many, like me, had never heard of or thought about this question before. The discussion that followed was one where we collectively unlocked the room’s intellectual energy to bring more clarity and meaning to answer that question. <br /><br />
That meeting really struck a chord and has stayed with me. The notes I scribbled that day are what I have captured below. I have not edited my notes for clarity or brevity. During the note capture process, I may have mistakenly re-contextualized or misinterpreted things. So a disclaimer: Some interpretation errors at my end are very likely. If you find any gold nuggets from these notes, credits go to the folks in that room on that day; any mistakes found here are mine. Without further ado, let’s get right into it. <br /></p>
<h2 id="who-is-a-when-person">Who is a “When” person?</h2>
<ul>
<li>A “When” person has great goals but has scheduled them for a non-specific time in the future that they label, “When it’s the right time.”</li>
<li>“When” quickly turns into “Never” because it’s just so easy to find excuses and rationalize the decision not to take action. “When” never shows up at the perfect time.</li>
<li>A “When” person is responding to external stimuli - He first finds out when a task is due and works backwards to calculate when certain milestones should be met. He needs that push to get things done.<br /></li>
</ul>
<h2 id="who-is-a-now-person">Who is a “Now” person?</h2>
<ul>
<li>A “Now” person is the complete opposite to a “When” person. She starts by asking herself the question, “What can I start right now to deliver this?” and she just starts.</li>
<li>She starts small but with disciplined effort, keeps at it and gets things done.<br /><br /></li>
</ul>
<p><img src="/assets/Now-versus-when.png" /></p>
<h2 id="ideas-on-how-to-be-a-now-person">Ideas on how to be a “Now” person:</h2>
<ul>
<li>
<table>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Don’t parallel process tasks. Serialize; stick to singular tasks.</td>
<td>Be comfortable taking one step at a time.</td>
<td>Create purpose and own it.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Create power-plays (cricket analogy — do short bursts of intense work)</td>
<td>Suck the juice out of your time.</td>
<td>Catch yourself getting distracted.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Don’t wait for cadence.</td>
<td>Create anxiety.</td>
<td>Build in public — Announce what you want to achieve to the world. Now that you’ve made a public proclamation, let the world see you sweat.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Set strong deadlines.</td>
<td>Feel and express guilt.</td>
<td>Shraddha (positive attitude towards the unknown dimension of reality) with less cynicism</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Believe in serendipity and synchronicity.</td>
<td>Take nothing for granted.</td>
<td>Think about 2nd and 3rd order consequences.</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Be greedy for purposeful interactions.</td>
<td>Show comfort with inefficiency and unstructured-ness.</td>
<td>Don’t get fatigued with iterations — Love them!</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Eat that frog first and expect / wait for caviar later (do the most boring tasks first)</td>
<td>Be the best you can be.</td>
<td> </td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="how-to-measure-and-keep-track-of-yourself-on-your-way-to-becoming-a-now-person">How to measure and keep track of yourself on your way to becoming a “Now” person?</h2>
<ul>
<li>How many times did you beat a deadline?</li>
<li>What was your response time?</li>
<li>What’s your “make to keep” ratio?</li>
<li>How many purposeful interactions have you had?</li>
<li>How many power plays planned/executed?</li>
<li>How much more did you get done/day?</li>
<li>What’s your “Nowness ratio”? Your (Productive time)/(Productive + Wasted Time)</li>
<li>What’s the ratio of the expected or planned task time to the actual task time?</li>
<li>How many items from your checklist were planned and executed?</li>
<li>How many plan B’s and plan C’s did you come up with for each task?</li>
<li>Write what will fail</li>
<li>Visualize the steps you will need to execute a task</li>
<li>Map your access to internal power — What’s the path to influencing powers that will help destroy obstacles in your way?</li>
<li>It is good to feel pain — Go beyond your comfort zone, with just enough discomfort (without being unreasonable)</li>
</ul>
<p><a href="https://unsplash.com/photos/p3Pj7jOYvnM">Photo</a> by Veri Ivanova on Unsplash</p>One day, way back in 2015, when I was working at Mu Sigma, the company CEO, Dhiraj Rajaram was addressing a room of over a hundred people. “Are you a ‘Now’ person or a ‘When’ person?,” he asked. Many, like me, had never heard of or thought about this question before. The discussion that followed was one where we collectively unlocked the room’s intellectual energy to bring more clarity and meaning to answer that question. That meeting really struck a chord and has stayed with me. The notes I scribbled that day are what I have captured below. I have not edited my notes for clarity or brevity. During the note capture process, I may have mistakenly re-contextualized or misinterpreted things. So a disclaimer: Some interpretation errors at my end are very likely. If you find any gold nuggets from these notes, credits go to the folks in that room on that day; any mistakes found here are mine. Without further ado, let’s get right into it. Who is a “When” person? A “When” person has great goals but has scheduled them for a non-specific time in the future that they label, “When it’s the right time.” “When” quickly turns into “Never” because it’s just so easy to find excuses and rationalize the decision not to take action. “When” never shows up at the perfect time. A “When” person is responding to external stimuli - He first finds out when a task is due and works backwards to calculate when certain milestones should be met. He needs that push to get things done. Who is a “Now” person? A “Now” person is the complete opposite to a “When” person. She starts by asking herself the question, “What can I start right now to deliver this?” and she just starts. She starts small but with disciplined effort, keeps at it and gets things done. Ideas on how to be a “Now” person: Don’t parallel process tasks. Serialize; stick to singular tasks. Be comfortable taking one step at a time. Create purpose and own it. Create power-plays (cricket analogy — do short bursts of intense work) Suck the juice out of your time. Catch yourself getting distracted. Don’t wait for cadence. Create anxiety. Build in public — Announce what you want to achieve to the world. Now that you’ve made a public proclamation, let the world see you sweat. Set strong deadlines. Feel and express guilt. Shraddha (positive attitude towards the unknown dimension of reality) with less cynicism Believe in serendipity and synchronicity. Take nothing for granted. Think about 2nd and 3rd order consequences. Be greedy for purposeful interactions. Show comfort with inefficiency and unstructured-ness. Don’t get fatigued with iterations — Love them! Eat that frog first and expect / wait for caviar later (do the most boring tasks first) Be the best you can be. How to measure and keep track of yourself on your way to becoming a “Now” person? How many times did you beat a deadline? What was your response time? What’s your “make to keep” ratio? How many purposeful interactions have you had? How many power plays planned/executed? How much more did you get done/day? What’s your “Nowness ratio”? Your (Productive time)/(Productive + Wasted Time) What’s the ratio of the expected or planned task time to the actual task time? How many items from your checklist were planned and executed? How many plan B’s and plan C’s did you come up with for each task? Write what will fail Visualize the steps you will need to execute a task Map your access to internal power — What’s the path to influencing powers that will help destroy obstacles in your way? It is good to feel pain — Go beyond your comfort zone, with just enough discomfort (without being unreasonable) Photo by Veri Ivanova on UnsplashA Framework: Staying Problem-focused versus Solution-focused2020-11-23T14:10:32+00:002020-11-23T14:10:32+00:00/2020/11/23/problem-focused-versus-solution-focused<p>Someone writes in to support:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Can you ask your team to build a button at the top which on clicking will open a pop-up and let me input X?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>A salesperson, after a demo, will say:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>The customer said we should automate this step,” or “How about having a tracker Y?” or “We must build feature Z now! Our competitors have it.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>As Product Managers, we often receive a lot of ideas from our users. These inputs vary. Some bring you ways to “build exactly <em>this</em>, in this manner.” Others leave it a little vague, “build something that does <em>this</em> behavior or takes <em>this</em> input-and gives <em>that</em> output.”</p>
<p>By approaching you, your users show they care. They believe these additions will make them efficient. Or your salespeople want these features built to close more deals.</p>
<p>These prescriptive nudges persuade you to think these inputs are important and urgent. It’s tempting to immediately take it up. But hold on a second! You must realize where these inputs are coming from.</p>
<p>Each of these individuals has their own biases, world-views, data-points, constraints, and assumptions. There are a few possibilities:</p>
<ul>
<li>These problems could be minor issues.</li>
<li>These inputs may be symptoms of a larger problem.</li>
<li>You could be optimizing for the vocal minority. They may not represent the users who are in the most need of a better experience.</li>
<li>When you jump at solutions, you have not understood the problem. Addressing these problems at face value will only help serve short-term needs. They will help you achieve a local maximum. Nothing more. You need to remind yourself to not get too attached to these inputs.</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="how-does-one-stay-problem-focused">How does one stay problem-focused?</h2>
<p>How does one learn? Outlined below are a few steps:</p>
<ul>
<li><strong>First, thank them:</strong> When you receive inputs like these, be thankful for the inputs. Let your stakeholders know that you appreciate their interest in improving the product.</li>
<li><strong>De-couple the problem from the solution:</strong> “You’re suggesting XYZ. And we know it’s a problem because…” “What convinced you that this was a problem? What makes it clear to you that this problem needs to be tackled?” Don’t prematurely affirm this to be the main problem. You are only mining for signals from this conversation.</li>
<li><strong>Confirm this from your data:</strong> Treat these requests as a lagging indicator of your product. Your metrics and KPIs should guide you to build features. If someone is complaining about a login form, your metrics should reflect this as a friction point well in advance.</li>
<li><strong>Record these inputs:</strong> Maintain a backlog of all the inbound requests you receive to get a gut feel of how many folks are asking for this. It would give you more data to confirm the size/value/urgency of the problem.</li>
<li>
<p><strong>Frame the problem (together as a team):</strong> Don’t shoulder the burden of framing the problem yourself. Involve your team. The good folks from your dev, design, support, and documentation teams bring diverse opinions, perspectives, experience, and expertise.</p>
<ul>
<li>What is the qualitative and quantitative evidence we have about this problem?</li>
<li>What gaps do we have in our evidence?</li>
<li>Is this a point problem?</li>
<li>Are we looking at it too narrowly?</li>
<li>Are we solving for only a specific segment of users?</li>
<li>Is it a frequent problem?</li>
<li>Is it an expensive problem?</li>
<li>Can we broaden our view of the problem?</li>
<li>What are our assumptions about the problem?</li>
<li>What alternate solutions exist?</li>
<li>What are their trade-offs?</li>
<li>What can we build that will maximize value for our customers?</li>
<li>What outcomes will each of these solutions yield?</li>
<li>How does this align with our team/company’s goals/mission?</li>
</ul>
</li>
<li><strong>Involve the initial stakeholders:</strong> Don’t assume that you have thought things through completely. What if there’s an unknown variable that you hadn’t accounted for? Business folks may not be great at defining end-solutions, but their inputs are valuable in shaping them.</li>
<li><strong>Visualizing other dimensions of the problem and your solution:</strong> This will uncover latent aspects of the problem. If we built this in this manner, what are the dependencies? What technical challenges can we expect? What will it cost us to solve this problem? How will we know we have solved this? Is there a way we can quantify it?</li>
<li><strong>Refine and rank:</strong> You have now decided what to build and how to build. How long will it take to build? Based on your situation, also decide when to build it (either in the next immediate sprint or at a future time).</li>
<li><strong>Close the loop:</strong> Align your stakeholders (the ones who shared the initial ideas). If necessary, let them know what you went through as a team and what was finally decided.</li>
</ul>
<p>In the end, it will be a subjective call with many trade-offs.
Even after you have shaped the problem, at best, you have a set of hypotheses to work off of. You could frame your hypotheses in this manner:</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>We are going to do...
Because we see the problem of...
We know it’s a problem because...
If we don’t fix it, we’ll see...
We’ll know we’ve fixed it when we get...
</code></pre></div></div>
<h2 id="in-conclusion">In Conclusion:</h2>
<p>When faced with situations like these, it is important not to feel pressured to rush to solutions. View the inputs offered as an intervention. View them as a gift in the form of an opportunity to better explore the problem space as a team.</p>
<p>Collaboration within product teams in problem discovery isn’t as natural as I put it. It takes a lot of time and effort to flesh out these conversations and align different stakeholders. And to make it more challenging:</p>
<div class="language-plaintext highlighter-rouge"><div class="highlight"><pre class="highlight"><code>Today’s solutions are only temporary.
Products evolve. Problem spaces evolve.
New ways of doing the same things more efficiently emerge.
</code></pre></div></div>
<p>Given these challenges, it is a miracle how software teams get anything done.</p>Someone writes in to support: Can you ask your team to build a button at the top which on clicking will open a pop-up and let me input X? A salesperson, after a demo, will say: The customer said we should automate this step,” or “How about having a tracker Y?” or “We must build feature Z now! Our competitors have it. As Product Managers, we often receive a lot of ideas from our users. These inputs vary. Some bring you ways to “build exactly this, in this manner.” Others leave it a little vague, “build something that does this behavior or takes this input-and gives that output.” By approaching you, your users show they care. They believe these additions will make them efficient. Or your salespeople want these features built to close more deals. These prescriptive nudges persuade you to think these inputs are important and urgent. It’s tempting to immediately take it up. But hold on a second! You must realize where these inputs are coming from. Each of these individuals has their own biases, world-views, data-points, constraints, and assumptions. There are a few possibilities: These problems could be minor issues. These inputs may be symptoms of a larger problem. You could be optimizing for the vocal minority. They may not represent the users who are in the most need of a better experience. When you jump at solutions, you have not understood the problem. Addressing these problems at face value will only help serve short-term needs. They will help you achieve a local maximum. Nothing more. You need to remind yourself to not get too attached to these inputs. How does one stay problem-focused? How does one learn? Outlined below are a few steps: First, thank them: When you receive inputs like these, be thankful for the inputs. Let your stakeholders know that you appreciate their interest in improving the product. De-couple the problem from the solution: “You’re suggesting XYZ. And we know it’s a problem because…” “What convinced you that this was a problem? What makes it clear to you that this problem needs to be tackled?” Don’t prematurely affirm this to be the main problem. You are only mining for signals from this conversation. Confirm this from your data: Treat these requests as a lagging indicator of your product. Your metrics and KPIs should guide you to build features. If someone is complaining about a login form, your metrics should reflect this as a friction point well in advance. Record these inputs: Maintain a backlog of all the inbound requests you receive to get a gut feel of how many folks are asking for this. It would give you more data to confirm the size/value/urgency of the problem. Frame the problem (together as a team): Don’t shoulder the burden of framing the problem yourself. Involve your team. The good folks from your dev, design, support, and documentation teams bring diverse opinions, perspectives, experience, and expertise. What is the qualitative and quantitative evidence we have about this problem? What gaps do we have in our evidence? Is this a point problem? Are we looking at it too narrowly? Are we solving for only a specific segment of users? Is it a frequent problem? Is it an expensive problem? Can we broaden our view of the problem? What are our assumptions about the problem? What alternate solutions exist? What are their trade-offs? What can we build that will maximize value for our customers? What outcomes will each of these solutions yield? How does this align with our team/company’s goals/mission? Involve the initial stakeholders: Don’t assume that you have thought things through completely. What if there’s an unknown variable that you hadn’t accounted for? Business folks may not be great at defining end-solutions, but their inputs are valuable in shaping them. Visualizing other dimensions of the problem and your solution: This will uncover latent aspects of the problem. If we built this in this manner, what are the dependencies? What technical challenges can we expect? What will it cost us to solve this problem? How will we know we have solved this? Is there a way we can quantify it? Refine and rank: You have now decided what to build and how to build. How long will it take to build? Based on your situation, also decide when to build it (either in the next immediate sprint or at a future time). Close the loop: Align your stakeholders (the ones who shared the initial ideas). If necessary, let them know what you went through as a team and what was finally decided. In the end, it will be a subjective call with many trade-offs. Even after you have shaped the problem, at best, you have a set of hypotheses to work off of. You could frame your hypotheses in this manner: We are going to do... Because we see the problem of... We know it’s a problem because... If we don’t fix it, we’ll see... We’ll know we’ve fixed it when we get... In Conclusion: When faced with situations like these, it is important not to feel pressured to rush to solutions. View the inputs offered as an intervention. View them as a gift in the form of an opportunity to better explore the problem space as a team. Collaboration within product teams in problem discovery isn’t as natural as I put it. It takes a lot of time and effort to flesh out these conversations and align different stakeholders. And to make it more challenging: Today’s solutions are only temporary. Products evolve. Problem spaces evolve. New ways of doing the same things more efficiently emerge. Given these challenges, it is a miracle how software teams get anything done.