CEO: “We need to replace our entire product team” Me: “Um, ok, let’s talk about this for a moment…” As a CPO and product advisor I’ve met plenty of CEOs and execs who are frustrated with the results they see from their product teams. Often they feel like all they need to do is replace the existing team with more experienced, “better” PMs. But really they're blaming PMs for some of their own shortcomings as leaders. Results from a product team depend on putting great PMs in a great environment. If you don’t have a great environment, it doesn’t matter how good your PMs are, you’ll still be disappointed with the results. Maybe your PMs really are awful, but before you fire them all and hire new ones, I’d make sure you fix the environment: a) It’s much faster, cheaper and less painful b) You’ll have to do it anyway c) You’ll be surprised by what you can get from your existing team So how do you create a great environment for PMs as a leader? 🎯 Have consistent goals Of course you want to be agile, but try not to change the priorities all the time. Every quarter is ok, but every week or two and your teams will never get going. 🛡 Minimize distractions Progress is inversely correlated to the number of initiatives you have. Make sure your teams aren’t getting distracted by execs’ pet projects, internal requests or customer feedback. Have a very small (1-2) number of priorities for them to focus on. 🗺 Explain the context Spend the time up front to explain your goals and the features you’re asking for. If all you’re doing is demanding widgets from your product team, likely they’ll have a very different idea from you of what they are building and why. 💰 Talk about the money You can’t expect your PMs to make commercial decisions if they don’t have visibility of the business financials. Make this a part of every discussion (but just a part - it’s not everything!) 🛑 Be explicit where you will take risk Teams are usually quite conservative when it comes to risk, because when the site goes down they get blamed. If you want to move quickly, be very clear about the risks that you are willing to take. 👥 Manage their role breadth PMs can be excellent at lots of things - comms, analysis, delivery, user interviews… pretty much whatever you need them to, but they can’t do it all at the same time - there are only so many hours in the day. Make sure tasks as split evenly across design, engineering and data. 📄 Agree a lightweight reporting process As a leader you need status updates. To fly blind would be reckless. But bloated reporting burns many hours each week. Take 1-2 hours up front to co-create a reporting process with your PMs (i.e. tell them what you really need, and let them figure out the best way to deliver it) and you’ll save them huge amounts of time going forward. And if there’s anything I can do to help, give me a shout. We’ve got lots of tools on Hustle Badger to accelerate product teams, and I offer private workshops and coaching.
Ed Biden , so true. A lot of companies try to get immediate financial results by firing employees (not only PMs) just to hire them back later. It could happen even several times until a company realises that it's not a solution and that it's crucial to learn how to set strategic goals and manage expectations. A famous example is Airbnb trying to get rid of Product Managers. What sounded as hot news turned out to be just reshaping the responsibility zone.
Yes, but also: if the CPO has let things get to this stage, they're doing their job poorly.
Also the system that hired and cultivated unproductive product teams is still the same system. If you aren't willing to change that then why get rid of the results that it created. Shows lack of understanding of culture and systems thinking. Sometimes. There can be one bad player that can't be saved but it's very unlikely (no I'll say never possible) to need the whole new team from scratch.
Great post. If you have a high-distraction environment with frequently shifting goals, and lots of BS work like excessive reporting (+ all the other things you list), even the best PMs won’t do a great job
Great post but referring to customer feedback as a distraction rather than core part of your workflow is really worrying.
Couldn't agree with this more! It's easy to look at a team and think, "They're not doing a good job." It's seemingly much harder to then think, "How am I as a leader helping the team? How am I hindering them?" Which unfortunately leads to knee-jerk reactions that ultimately cost the company more in the long run.
the number of times I have seen multiple people cycle through a role and on the fourth person in the role there is still no observation that it isn't the individual but the way the role is defined or expectations about it. fix the structure and the person can deliver
Interesting Ed Biden. I would write much the same about Partnerships roles.... "Dear Leadership Team, how about we discuss the financial goals of the business (for context, aka Why). Next, agree clear outcomes you need from me, then let's get on with the job."
If the ceo is replacing the whole team does not that imply cpo would be replaced too?
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3mo"Results from a product team depend on putting great PMs in a great environment. If you don’t have a great environment, it doesn’t matter how good your PMs are, you’ll still be disappointed with the results." This line here hits the nail on the head for me. Product works when the environment is built to support it, not completely rely on it and then point fingers if it doesn't deliver results.