How I Learned to Lead a Cross-Functional Product Team with Limited Resources
For product managers, especially those at large organizations confident in their market position, it seems normal to have a permanent team (or even several teams), ready to serve and execute any request on demand. The situation I describe is one more familiar to startup founders, as they rely on risky and ambitious ideas rather than stability.
Between wealthy, influential companies and startups there is a middle ground that I occupy. I work for a web development outsourcing company that is in the process of pivoting its income generating model. We’re trying to develop something we call “a product culture”, and making tons of mistakes along the way.
For a long time I’ve been sharing people from what I referred to as “my team”, with other teams on other projects. They come to all our daily stand-ups and tell me: “Yesterday didn’t do anything because I was working for Project X, today I’m not going to do anything for your project, because I’ll be working on Project Y.”
Sometimes it makes me crazy AF.
I haven’t yet figured out how to cope with these feelings, but I have identified some principles that help me increase my teammates’ engagement and win their trust in the unspoken battles for their time and attention between my project and others. These principles have made it possible for me to build something I can truly call “my team”, because these people solve the problems facing our product with the same keenness as I do. Hence the name “Keen” for our new product.
Buckle up, here come my principles!
Spread Positivity
This principle works for everything! I’ll explain some exceptions and variations later, but for now let’s just remember this: positivity has a healing power that inspires others to work with you. Any specialist prefers working on teams, with a positive and friendly approach to communication.
I don’t know why, but I often see the opposite. For managers, it begins with slowly getting annoyed by the specialist not having enough time for their responsibilities. On the other side of the same coin, specialists have a constant flow of work from different projects that makes it hard to manage time and deliver on time. These obstacles tend to trigger managers to behave aggressively and blame the specialist.
This approach just doesn’t work.
Feeling constant aggression and stress, team members begin to feel insecure in their “teams”. Productivity declines, and team members start procrastinating on tasks just to avoid the stress of working with your team. They start thinking you’re the enemy, because your behaviour is highly destructive. When this happens, it takes a long time to rebuild trust and improve performance.
So, I strongly recommend using the principle of spreading positivity as much as possible. Yes, the challenges of your own responsibilities might be exhausting. But if you want to improve the situation, identify something positive about the project you haven’t commented on yet. Maybe, your junior developer learned something new. Or maybe your QA is starting to write test automation that will speed up future releases. Let them know you’re happy with their progress. Make them sure to support everything cool they do, even if it doesn’t have an immediate impact on your project.
People will always find reasons to feel bad on their own. Try to be the one who helps them find positive moments in their everyday routines, and make them feel loyal to you and your project.
Be More Human
Humans like humans, not functions, roles or positions. For specialists working on your project four hours a week, you’re just another manager until you show them something different.
At daily meetings, tell them what you did yesterday, something many managers avoid, believing there’s no need to show their own work to subordinates, share interesting news and updates with them. If you feel bad or something’s happened to you, let them know. (Caution — this principle may conflict with the first.) Sometimes speaking about yourself means speaking about things that hurt you or your project, and sharing that your situation may not be as rosy as it seems to your team.
I call this the Principle of Vulnerability. People need to see your vulnerability to trust you. But be careful, if you overdo it, they may begin to see you as a weak leader. I try to use the 20/80 rule here: in 20% of my conversations with others I’m vulnerable and emotional, while in 80% I’m rational and focused on business needs. Also be careful not to discuss internal politics or your opinion (negative or positive) of other members on the team, as this can destroy trust.
If you have a problem talking about yourself, no worries, I have some hacks. It also works well to talk about casual things that everybody likes.
Some examples:
“Yesterday I took a dog for a walk. He’s crazy funny. Let me send you a Slack video. You’re gonna love him!”
“I read an article about enterprise sales yesterday, with some great insights. You wanna check it out? I’ll send it over”
“Sometimes I feel like I’m getting tired too fast. You ever experience that? How do you deal with it?”
These little comments build a bridge between you and your team. Remember: people prefer to work with humans, not positions.
Give Context
Giving your team context means improving transparency. Transparency sometimes means talking about issues your project and team face. This isn’t about being vulnerable or building trust, it’s about keeping your people up-to-date about what’s going on with the project.
“Yesterday I talked to our client, but the negotiations didn’t go well.”
“We have high customer churn.”
“Our client decided not to continue the project with us.”
This kind of news can be disappointing, and some managers ask me: “Why do you tell your team? It’ll hurt their performance if they lose morale.”
However, in practice it’s not as linear as that. People solve problems well only if they have all the necessary information. If they know we don’t have enough money, they’ll come up with a cheaper solution. If they know users churn, they can brainstorm the reason and try to resolve it with new features.
It’s ok to talk about problems, if you present them as case studies rather than problems. This is part of a normal process. Our job is to solve problems. Tell them to “think about how we can retain our clients better.” Don’t focus on the negative. Invite your teammates to brainstorm ways to move forward. Engage them in problem solving, and people become more closely involved in the project. They begin to feel like a part of it.
But be careful, this principle can also sometimes conflict with the first. Just try to find a balance, and keep focussed on a solution-oriented approach.
Simplify Working Methods
If you want your team to do your work ASAP, describe the task in as much detail as possible. Attach all the links might be helpful for the job at hand and the Slack name of a specialist who can help if something goes wrong. Describe all potential problems that could come up. Set up all dependencies and blockers so your team member won’t start the task too early. Identify and clearly mark priorities if you have them, as I suspect you do. Trust me, it helps.
Do your best and only ask your team to do the things you can’t do on your own. Don’t make them suffer and search for answers. Build an environment in which its easy for a specialist to do your tasks when they have a few spare minutes, they’ll definitely appreciate it. It may improve their motivation to do more for you in the future too. It’s always easier to find specialists to work well defined tasks.
Some managers think it isn’t their job to find references for the designer or API docs for developers to understand how the integration should work. I agree, it shouldn’t be your job, but you can make it easier for your teammates to deliver the work you require from them on time, without additional stress if you want. They’ll thank you for it.
Identify People’s Passions
This principle is my fav. It’s the trickiest, but also the most effective.
It’s tricky because implementing it requires some imagination (sometimes a lot) and strong soft skills. It’s easier to motivate your specialists through their actual goals than through the ones the organization assumes they have.
Some people desire praise. Others dream about promotions or new skills they can’t acquire in their day-to-day jobs. Still others wants to go to Bali for a couple months and share cool pics on Instagram to catch followers’ attention and build their audience. We’re all different and can be motivated by different things. Don’t use the same approach for everyone.
For a manager who lacks human resources, this is crucial: if you want people to build engagement in your project, explain how they can achieve their personal goals through your project (and you). Knowing you protect their interests creates an alliance with you that helps both sides win.
A few examples from my own experience of how to transform mundane work into something people actively want to do:
“We need to set up payment system” → “You’ll be able to launch a web application with SAAS monetization after closing this issue” (for a developer dreaming about his own startup)
“We need banners for a Google ad campaign” → “If we execute a successful ad campaign, we’ll get enough data to work on our hypothesis in product development” (for a designer who wants to learn to work with analytics)
“We need more articles” → “We want you to be our author and we’ll promote you as an expert” (for anyone who wants recognition and help with personal brand development)
Try to sell tasks as a marketer, not just assign them and rely on your managerial status. I’m sure your status helps, but if you lack resources and a deadline is approaching, status may not be enough to achieve the desired result.
Follow these five principles, and your team will become more unified, committed and engaged in your projects.
TL;DR
If you face the challenges of running a team spread between a number of projects:
- Use your inner energy to power up your surroundings. People want to be closer to an environment that charges their mental capacity.
- Transparency is key to meaningful results.
- Do everything you can on your own before passing off tasks to your teammates.
- Motivate people through their personal goals. Find a unique approach for everyone.
- Be a person, not a function.
