The Perfect Product Management Day

Yesterday was my first day back after a nice long vacation…so I’ll premise this post with the honest fact that my perspective was fresh and optimistic. With that said, yesterday was the perfect Product Management day for me.

1. Had time to prepare — as with any day that leads to productive and meaningful conversations, I was able to prepare for my day and come loaded with questions and ideas to those I planned to meet with. This gave me the confidence to drive the conversations that were necessary to accelerate product development, roadmap adjustments, and launch planning.
2. Strong Standup Meeting with Development Team — some stand-ups just feel like a come to Jesus moment for the team. Yesterday the leadership of my Venture, Marketing and Development leaders were all on a similar wavelength and we were able to creatively solve new problems, demonstrate some exciting new features, and get status updates on roadblocks and actions necessary over the next several days to be successful for our upcoming launches.
3. Mentor Meeting — one of my Mentors took me out (yes, he paid which makes it even sweeter) to a wonderful Belgium lunch (an amazing beef stew and salad to be precise). I was able to get his feedback and thoughts on some current choices and challenges I am facing with my product role. Always great to get that outside perspective from someone who has been there and has a higher level view of things.
4. Product Meetup — finally, last night I was able to share about my product at The Product Group to a group of around 100 fellow product peeps. This group is a great brain trust of how NYC product managers do their work and help drive toward meaningful, value centric product offerings and solutions. The discussions and feedback inspired me and gave me and my team some ideas that we’ve not thought of before.

To each of the individuals who helped my day be a Perfect Product Management Day, thank you.