10 things you can start doing today to unleash your product team’s potential.

Great product teams have highly potent characteristics such as productivity, passion, creativity and free flow of ideas. These are ephemeral things that need constant protection.

A Product Manager or Product Owner’s job is to understand her team, their interactions and their expectations in addition to obsessing about user delight and product. Doing this will help ensure that your crew delivers a product even better than envisioned. Processes are great but it’s real people who make them tick.

Here are a few learnings that I’ve gained in my many years of working with product teams that might help you in your efforts to unleash creativity in your team and identify some things that hold it back.

1. Have a high bar but don’t get carried away. It’s good to have high expectations. It’s actually indispensable. However, don't harp on seemingly small issues. Point them out and trust the team to get it right. If you want to be Steve Jobs then start with having his vision not his temperament.

2. Capitalize on every project: Always have a learning meeting after every small or big launch. Executing and launching the smallest of the features is like a microcosm of team dynamics, project management, ideation, design and testing. There are learnings that you can document, discuss and use to make the next launch even better. Don’t let it go. This will also help people speak out and critique since the context is of understanding ‘what went wrong’ and ‘what went right’.

3. Focus vs Multitasking. There are people who have to actually create (such as designers and developers) and there are people who plan and co-ordinate (such as leads and PMs). Both roles are essential to success, but what you should understand is that the former need extended periods of focus unlike the latter who could be effective multitaskers. Make sure you don’t overload folks who have to ‘create’. The concerns which fail are those which have scattered their brains and are invested in this, or that, or the other, here, there and everywhere. This is true even in the case of planners when they are researching, analysing or speccing. Be aware of what someone is working on and then assign tasks and deadlines accordingly.

4. Watch how email flows. As a leader/PM invested into your teams peak potential, you need to notice people who a.) Respond only if their managers are in cc b.) Don’t respond when a response means some ‘real’ action be taken on their part c.) Always re-direct questions that require research and spadework d.) Do mostly shallow work like sending emails and report on stuff already done. Such interactions are very efficient at snubbing open discussion, candid review of ideas and deep work by crowding out folks who do want to add value. And worse..it spreads if not stopped. As Ben Horowitz says in his blog,

It only takes one player to opt in, because once someone starts playing, everybody is going in — and they are going in hard.

“People glom onto words and stories that are often just stand-ins for real action and meaning.” — Ed Catmull, president of Pixar Animation Studios

5. Getting it right all the time? That’s not good. It could simply mean that you are being too safe. Are you winning as in ‘nothing went wrong’ or are you winning as in ‘changed the game’. To fail while taking educated risks is admirable and should be celebrated. Constantly failing due to incompetence or mismanagement is a different issue altogether. Don’t confuse them!

6. Don’t rely only on data. Data-driven decision making is great and indispensable but relying 100% on it can set you back. Only things that exist leave a trail. While you are out fine-combing data from things that already exist, your competitors or a bunch of kids in a garage are thinking of a new world order. Creating only on data is optimisation and a product can’t survive doing only that. Give your team the flexibility of imagination. Help your team think of new ways of doing things to make your users lives magical. Throw it in the mix!

“Managing by numbers is like painting by numbers. Strictly for amateurs.” —Ben Horowitz, General partner — Andreessen Horowitz.

7. Don’t tolerate criticism under these 2 circumstances: First, behind the back. Second, on email. Open discussions are the only way someone should be allowed to dismiss someone’s suggestion or criticize it. Every time you allow it (and/or react in affirmation!) you will lose one person (at least) who will never speak his mind again. And the worst part..its infectious.

8. Let the original ideator be involved in the execution. She will do anything in her power to keep her idea from failing. People give ideas to help the company and themselves. There is nothing more demoralising to them than seeing their name disappear when the idea is taken up. If you can’t involve the person, at least be courteous enough to share the credit. Remember: It’s more about the message you send to others than to just this one person.

9. Recognise help. If you see someone helping another then make it a point to appreciate it, preferably in front of others. A visible pat on the back for being helpful has magic to it. Soon you will find people supporting each other all the time. Then you will have a team of the best kind : one that sticks together.

10. Allow folks to change their minds. New evidence surfaces all the time and ideas should be taken on their face value and not on who said it and when. If you believed it then and a winning argument is presented later then you can either counter it with a better one or accept it. Saying ‘You got x approved earlier and can’t change your stance now’ is nonsense.

What other things do you think Product Managers and leaders should be aware of and actively lookout for?

I hope some of these observations help you in your daily endeavour to over-deliver and outperform on behalf of your user. Every win adds up. Every win counts.

You can also find me on Twitter where I try and share as much of what I think, learn, know, read and hear on Product Management — @karanperi

Here’s to the coolest job and continuous learning ☺