Measuring Success
Why time matters in measuring success
Do you live and die by deadlines or are they largely ambiguous suggestions? In some industries deadlines are everything, but in product management they're often used to help communicate intent and effectively measure success.
Communicate intent. Based on everything you know, by when do you believe you can accomplish something (i.e. bug fix, enhancement, new feature)? While it can do more harm than good to commit to specifics with clients, internally, you should have alignment of the "by when" so you can prioritize accordingly.
Measure success. You've heard of a SMART goal? (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-Bound). It can be challenging to know how successful you've been in achieving a desired outcome without having some sort of deadline. For example, I can say I want to increase net new revenue by 10%, but without a timeframe within which to increase that revenue how do I know that my product is really successful?
Learn more about writing effective goals and objectives:
Ultimate Guide to SMART Goals from Forbes
What Makes Good OKRs? from Measure What Matters
Watch the video below for a quick snack about why time matters when setting expectations with your stakeholders:
Why clearly defining desired outcomes matters
We've all been in a situation in which someone asked us to do something or build something without clear understanding of what we were trying to accomplish. It's frustrating. This is why it's so important to engage your team in taking ownership of understanding your user, their problem, and what you're ultimately trying to influence by building a product or feature. Let's set ourselves and our teams up for success by making sure the desired outcome is as clear as possible.
Non-specific directives can result in confusion, frustration, and wasted time and efforts.
Too-specific directives likewise result in confusion, frustration, and wasted time and efforts.
What's the happy medium? Outcome-based leadership in product management.
To give credit where credit is due, I highly encourage familiarizing yourself with Dave Martin's article on this: https://www.righttoleft.io/blog/the-power-of-outcome-based-leadership-in-product-management
Watch the video below for a quick snack about why being outcome-oriented helps set clearer expectations: