Dealing with uncertainty: the product manager’s dilemma
A day in the life of a product manager often includes a lot of uncertainty. And as we work in the world of agile, MVP, experimentation, and so forth, the product delivery itself feels uncertain. This blog outlines my favorite techniques to deal with uncertainty, or its pal, VUCA (volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity).
Take a three-pronged approach
- Over-communicate
- Manage risks like a pro
- Plan your backup plans
Over-communicate
Start over-communicating your primary date now to all disciplines, especially the last day you can pull out or dramatically adjust what’s presented. What is a primary date? Examples are an announcement at a conference, a goLive, an acquisition purchase, or an end-of-marketing.
When talking about dates, don’t forget the key milestones or gates leading to that primary date. For instance, gates can be customer acceptance testing, legal approvals, staff onboarded, or pen testing.
Manage risks like a pro
Do everything you can do nail down every risk:
- Cadence your risk owners at least weekly if not more frequently
- For each risk, meet regularly with the affected stakeholders and get them in the boat with your mitigation strategies. Don’t let them reverse their support at the last minute.
- Ensure executive’s Staff calls cover your risk matrix, every week.
Plan your backup plans
Uncertainty means that you prepare not just for the desired outcome, but also unexpected outcomes. So, create backup plans for what might happen (contingencies). Don’t go into excruciating detail, but you do need to be ready to move quickly if stakeholders or circumstances throw you a curveball.
Often, the curveballs come in the form of Go / No-Go milestones in your program, such as briefings with your decision makers. Whenever you go into a decision making meeting, you can count on three outcomes:
- Approved. Yay, you’re done. Go have a cold one and start tracking your success metrics.
- Denied. Oops, it’s time to do a fast retro and quick pivot. A good practice is to have already done a retro, but now you’ll need another retro to figure out how you missed the mark completely.
- Comeback. Your stakeholders were leaning towards a “yes,” but they had some additional requests for you to track done and complete. This last one is where you need to plan time for this eventuality.
DEALING WITH COMEBACKS AND TURNING THEM INTO A WIN
I know it might feel like you’re derailed when you’re handed a comeback (or two). Yet, normally these comebacks address a gap in your product or delivery that will lead to serious flaws or outright failures. A comeback typically gives you a bit of time to improve your product and expand its potential for success. Leverage this success metric because it could help you:
1. Market and sell the product
2. Increase quality and customer satisfaction
3. Add to your arsenal of personal highlights and wins
I’ll leave you with this tip about comebacks and schedule: Plan for offline approval via email after addressing comebacks at least 3 days before your go/no-go date. You can compress your schedule and improve outcomes!
