Product Management and Trust

Product Managers make a ton of decisions. Part of the decision making process after all options have been considered and the decision has been made, is convincing all other stake holders that this is the right decision. This is part of the politics of PM.

As a PM, if I decide to work on a short term feature to win an important contract, I’m going to have to convince Engineering to take on tech debt.

If I want to work on a new platform (inherently a long term project), I’m going to have to convince the account executive that the feature their client has been asking for has to wait.

So how can a Product Manager get buy in quicker?

By building trust.

If I’m a Product Manager and I have high trust across my team. They’ll trust the decision I make. I don’t have to spend extra time convincing them that this is the right one [1].

For say a Junior PM, it might take longer for them to make decisions because they have low trust across the organization. You’ll have to spend more time explaining yourself, defending your decision.

How can a PM build trust?

One way, is through building a strong relationship with team members. Personally, I like to do this through one on ones meetings.

Another way is by getting things done. Once you have proven yourself you begin to gain trust across the organization. And trust spreads. Trust becomes part of your reputation and other people will have trust you despite not having a direct relationship.

Notes

[1] It is important to let your team know the reasoning behind why decisions are made.