Sunday, May 31, 2009
Friday, May 29, 2009
deck: why most presentations suck
Thanks to Jon Gatrell at Spatially Relevant for turning me on to this.
And may I suggest that step one to making your presentations suck less (if not lose their suckiness entirely) is to start thinking of yourself as a storyteller who needs to entertain first and inform a close second. It unleashes a flood of karmic goodness when you put the well-being of your audience first.
transitions: onward and upward
Thoughtful readers of ack/nak will have noticed I've been rather quiet this month.
Like many Americans I got caught up in the economic downturn, and found myself on May 1st to be, as the euphemism goes, "exploring new opportunities".
What I made were a lot of discoveries.
One of the biggest was in stress management, as I took to going to the gym on a near-daily basis, figuring if I exhausted myself I could purge some of the stress-toxins. It worked quite well. I'm sorry I didn't discover this a long time ago.
I discovered there were a lot of people who appreciate what I "do". Thank you to all of you who reached out to me with ideas and opportunities for collaboration. Thank you.
I discovered there is a world of difference between "manning the oars" and "holding the rudder" when it comes to approaching problems - it's hard to see where you're going when you have your back to the bow of the boat.
I discovered an ability to visualize that I hadn't fully exploited. As they say in "The Secret", thoughts become things - the Law of Attraction is a powerful force available to everyone to turn your dreams into reality. And as I started to dream, I felt the fear melt away.
And I discovered - again - how wonderful my wife and kids truly are.
The journey of the product manager is never easy, it is never straight, and it is never predictable. It is also never, ever boring. As I begin a new product management adventure, I'm proud to be part of a community of professionals who never lose sight of their humanity.
I'll keep you posted. Keep those cards and letters coming.
Saturday, May 16, 2009
musashi-sensei: rules for product management
Shinmen Musashi No Kami Fujiwara No Genshin, or as he is commonly known Miyamoto Musashi, was born in the village called Miyamoto in the province Mimasaka in 1584.
He was the author of A Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho), a philosophical treatise on the way of the sword. To the Japanese he is Kensei (literally "sword saint"), and his teachings are an essential part of the Kendo bibliography.
In his 1974 translation of the book, Victor Harris remarked that "the book is not a thesis on strategy, it is in Musashi's word 'a guide for men who want to learn strategy' and, as a guide always leads, so the contents are always beyond the student's understanding. The more one reads the book the more one finds in its pages. It is Musashi's last will, the key to the path he trod."
Go Rin No Sho is definitely worthy of that warning. I've been reading it for 25 years and it reveals something new each time I visit it.
Musashi-sensei generously provided a list of nine guidelines for students who would follow his Way:
He was the author of A Book of Five Rings (Go Rin No Sho), a philosophical treatise on the way of the sword. To the Japanese he is Kensei (literally "sword saint"), and his teachings are an essential part of the Kendo bibliography.
In his 1974 translation of the book, Victor Harris remarked that "the book is not a thesis on strategy, it is in Musashi's word 'a guide for men who want to learn strategy' and, as a guide always leads, so the contents are always beyond the student's understanding. The more one reads the book the more one finds in its pages. It is Musashi's last will, the key to the path he trod."
Go Rin No Sho is definitely worthy of that warning. I've been reading it for 25 years and it reveals something new each time I visit it.
Musashi-sensei generously provided a list of nine guidelines for students who would follow his Way:
- Do not think dishonestly.
- The Way is in training.
- Become acquainted with every art.
- Know the Ways of all professions.
- Distinguish between gain and loss in worldly matters.
- Develop intuitive judgement and understanding for everything.
- Perceive those things which cannot be seen.
- Pay attention even to trifles.
- Do nothing which is of no use.
For individuals interested in strategy these are powerful and quite intimate personal lessons. Victor Harris describes the book as ". . . unique among books of martial art in that it deals with both the strategy of warfare and the methods of single combat in exactly the same way." Put another way, Musashi-sensei teaches that you cannot master the grand strategy of armies without also mastering the self.
For product managers, this is the most powerful lesson of Go Rin No Sho. We operate in a world in which we are called on to assimilate information, formulate plans, execute on campaigns and adapt to changing conditions - all without direct control of or authority over the resources who will perform the work required to achieve the goal.
I believe the superior product manager is able to accomplish this work of grand strategy if he or she demonstrates a strong competency in personal strategy - in the individual disciplines that give evidence of an ability to direct and accomplish the larger works.
Musashi-sensei wrote "all of the five books (that make up Go Rin No Sho) are chiefly concerned with timing. You must train sufficiently to appreciate all this." When to strike, and how, and why, are at the core of his teaching. Is there anything more fundamental to our craft than timing? This is worthy of some discussion, I think.
I carry these nine guidelines with me wherever I go. Next time we meet, ask for a copy and I'll give you one. You'll probably be better at many of them than I am, and I'll look forward to learning from you.
For product managers, this is the most powerful lesson of Go Rin No Sho. We operate in a world in which we are called on to assimilate information, formulate plans, execute on campaigns and adapt to changing conditions - all without direct control of or authority over the resources who will perform the work required to achieve the goal.
I believe the superior product manager is able to accomplish this work of grand strategy if he or she demonstrates a strong competency in personal strategy - in the individual disciplines that give evidence of an ability to direct and accomplish the larger works.
Musashi-sensei wrote "all of the five books (that make up Go Rin No Sho) are chiefly concerned with timing. You must train sufficiently to appreciate all this." When to strike, and how, and why, are at the core of his teaching. Is there anything more fundamental to our craft than timing? This is worthy of some discussion, I think.
I carry these nine guidelines with me wherever I go. Next time we meet, ask for a copy and I'll give you one. You'll probably be better at many of them than I am, and I'll look forward to learning from you.
____
A Book of Five Rings by Miyamoto Musashi, translated by Victor Harris (The Overlook Press, 1982)
Tuesday, May 05, 2009
transparency: your calendar
If I were to magically gain access to your work calendar would it tell me anything about your priorities? Or would I just see "meetings"?
Product managers and product marketers live in an intensely networked world - our jobs require us to spend a disproportionate amount of time in meetings with others in order to accomplish our goals. Take a look at any of our calendars and you'll see a patchwork of weekly/monthly/quarterly/yearly recurring meetings. During release seasons, you may see that we're completely booked.
It will be immediately clear what's "urgent". But will it be equally clear what's "important"?
I ask because one of the quality-of-life problems for practitioners of our craft is - wait for it - not having enough time to dedicate to the long-cycle problems. And one reason we don't have enough time is that we're too free with it.
Have you ever heard the following statement: "I looked at your calendar and saw you were free, so I scheduled a meeting with you"?
Conversely, have you ever heard the following statement: "I looked at your calendar and decided what I needed you to do was more urgent than what you had scheduled at the time, so I scheduled a meeting with you"?
My bet is you've heard both - the former from peers and subordinates, and the latter from the folks you work for.
In both situations you ask yourself- do you want to be the one who DECLINES the meeting and upsets the cart? Or do you just accept, secretly resentful that you've been pulled away from a task that you need to accomplish? Are the first words out of your mouth at the meeting "where is the agenda" and "I have a hard stop at. . ."?
Or: do you schedule time to advance your non-urgent (or "long-cycle") agendas, and if you do, do you label them in a manner that would make sense to a third party? Beyond the title, do you include any details in the meeting notes that could help the viewer understand what you were doing and why?
I ask for two reasons - one external to you and one internal - with a bonus outcome you may not have anticipated.
Externally, booking your own time for activities that make sense to an external viewer raises the bar for someone looking to take that time away from you. It also forces you to "reschedule" those activities to remove the conflict from your calendar (if you accept the meeting), which means they'll still get done. Marking a time for "projects" is OK, but it's not going to stand up to much external scrutiny.
The bonus outcome is you become more transparent. Your process for advancing your personal agendas is visible to everyone, especially those whose contributions are required for you to accomplish them. For the members of your team, imagine seeing an item on your calendar that reads "update team MBO progress" every month.
And this helps to make time for the activities that can get "lost" - how many of you PMs wish you had more time to spend with telesales? Get it on your calendar. Tell them that you've got time dedicated to them each month, and that they can book you for time to sit at their desks with a pair of headphones on, listening to actual prospects.
It also serves as a helpful tool for justifying an investment in additional staff - when you run out of time to advance the agendas you've been assigned you have three choices: find more time, eliminate some existing agendas from your list, get more resources. Option number one is only an option if you're not managing your time well, and option number two is only an option if you're not managing your priorities well. Once those are both as tight as you can get them, you can make a good argument to add staff.
I'm sure there are other benefits that you, my dear reader, will remind me of. But I've run out of time today to write you and must move on to my next activity.
"7:00am: make coffee for Julie"
No way am I rescheduling that.
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