Aug 6
Product Managers: Fight for Curiosity
I’m diving deeper on the topic of fighting for curiosity in an upcoming webinar with Product-Led Alliance later this month (August ‘22). Have questions I should weave in? DM me.
In the healthiest high performing product teams, curiosity is a compulsion. An intentional, relentless drive to learn that sparks action. It’s a mindset and a muscle.
To be curious is to care. It takes work — you need to fight for curiosity. If you don’t, it disintegrates, and so will your product.
Intentional curiosity
As I’ve talked with product managers on this topic, here’s the visual that’s emerged:
Apathy. Danger zone. Easy to drift into — do the meetings, answer the emails. All the sudden, it’s been a while since you’ve talked with a customer, or realized your KPIs aren’t relevant anymore. You slow down, you stop caring.
Wondering. You know the product manager in the upper left: Wondering. Skimming through data and conversations with customers. Learning in spurts, then firing off questions to teams that cause confusion and churn. Curiosity without application.
Myopia. And in the opposite corner, the product manager myopically focused on shipping That Feature — strong sense of purpose. Never late. And not curious enough to think critically or ask questions. Lacking imagination.
Intentional curiosity. Purposeful, intentional curiosity is choosing your questions with precision and context, and finding the right way to ask them. It’s lifting your eyes while executing with speed. It’s caring enough to ask, “Why?” and pivoting where necessary. It’s a motion, a feeling that’s honed with experience. Curiosity and action = Consistently delivering on the right problem, quickly.
Curiosity in the product lifecycle
Does this resonate with you? Zooming into how curiosity often plays out in the product lifecycle:
At the start of research/discovery, you’re on fire. You’re talking with customers, combing through data, sizing up the competition.
As you move into validation and delivery though, your aperture narrows and shifts, especially under pressure — just like a camera lens: You’re letting less (or different) light in. Your sense of curiosity wanes to make space for an increased focus on delivering.
Primed to increase the chances of delivering the wrong thing.
Now what? Some tips.
Stay curious about your customer, your product, your craft:
- Look at your product portfolio and do a thought exercise. What new learning might cause you to stop something mid-flight? What would it take to over-power the inertia?
- Struggling to care enough to be curious? Find something related that you do care about, and connect it back. (This is a tool that’s often recommended to neurodiverse folks who operate more with an interest-based nervous system rather than an importance-based nervous system.)
- For those of you who use your own product each day, what a double edged sword! So easy to become numb to the papercuts and gloss over the opportunities. Don’t let a week go by without talking to a customer for their perspective.
- Curiosity is contagious. Make a note of the questions you’re asking individually and publicly.
- At FullStory, we use a simple exercise called One Number. Each PM brings one piece of data to our team meeting. It helps ensure we’re constantly in the data, and always generates rich dialogue: Each insight sparks a flurry of questions, and curiosity takes over!
- Curiosity requires trust and humility. An empowered org where teams can ask questions and prioritize the answers based on clear frameworks and goals. How would your team rate trust?
- When asking questions, pair curiosity with context. “I’m curious: Where can I find more data on X? Context: Was talking with a customer yesterday and…” Disarming. Brings others along.
- As you interview, know that they’re paying attention to the questions you’re asking, too. Curiosity is a key characteristic of product managers.
Above all: Product work is a joy! Stay curious.
