16 product management resolutions from leaders at Amplitude, Loom, Gong, Miro & more!
Productboard’s product team recently shared their 2022 resolutions — reflections, learnings, and intentions to drive better outcomes in the new year. Their responses spanned both the personal and professional:
- Share discovery knowledge early on to earn buy-in from relevant stakeholders
- Empower the team and focus on the “why”
- Only rely on intuition if it is informed by extensive real-world experience
- Carve out time for personal growth
With so many great learnings from the team, we also wanted to look outwards and tap into the expertise of our partners. The more insights, the better! Just as we imagined, they brought many incredible ideas to the table.
Read on for the 2022 resolutions of product leaders at Miro, Amplitude, Gong, Loom, and many more!
Miro
Put infrastructure and processes in place to monitor the traction of existing features
“It’s often tempting to put a lot of energy into discovering and building new product features and forget about them once launched. My resolution is to have infrastructure and processes in place that enable my teams to monitor the performance of existing features and execute product improvements by identifying potential feature debts. A simple example is finding and eliminating features that do not have enough traction and no longer serve the product vision.”
Fewer meetings, more asynchronous work (and more)
“The first thing that came up to my mind is: fewer meetings, more asynchronous work! Get time back to focus on strategy and encourage more async work so people from different time zones feel more included. A more personal one is to catch up on all the books I bought over the last two years! At the company level, I'd like to drastically improve the way we show progress and successes internally and to share more insights from customers and partners to build even more empathy.”
Loom
Build for our vision, but carve out time to validate along the way
“Conviction is powerful. At Loom, we needed a whole lot of conviction to build a video messaging product for work before knowledge workers went remote. Today, we believe in this vision even more strongly. As we continue to build against it in 2022, it’s important that we carve out time to validate our solutions and ensure we’re landing it right. ”
Remember: we can’t solve the business problem unless we also solve the user problem
“When prioritizing roadmaps and justifying projects, it’s tempting to focus on what we think will be the biggest wins for the business in terms of growth or revenue. It’s critical, however, to remember that users won’t sign up or give us their money unless we create real value and solve salient problems with everything we build.”
Embed moments for user delight and joy throughout our product
“Loom is primarily a work tool used for daily communication, but we want to make sure our users also find it fun and enjoyable to use. A large portion of the workforce remains remote or hybrid. We can create magic via intentional design decisions, copy tweaks, and features that give our users reasons to smile throughout the day.”
Amplitude
Hold quarterly product decision reviews
“Hold quarterly product decision reviews to ask, “What information did we have available at the time of the decision? What context were we operating under? What options did we weigh?” The goal here is not to focus myopically on the outcome – which is often luck-driven – but rather to review the decision-making process to understand opportunities for improvement.”
Gong
Always talk to customers!
“Talk to as many customers as I can on a regular basis. They'll show me the way. ”
LaunchDarkly
Help cross-functional members of the product team to develop empathy for each other
“At LaunchDarkly, teams are led by triads — a PM, designer, and engineering lead — who are responsible for planning a team’s feature from inception to delivery. A 2022 resolution is to help each member develop empathy for the other functions by occasionally having the designer help plan engineering milestones, the PM lead customer research calls, or the engineering manager lead white-boarding sessions. ”
UserTesting
Empower the entire team to see how their work fits into the big picture
“In the new year, I want everyone in the product organization to feel they're empowered to innovate and think big with regards to how we realize our product vision. Ensuring the entire team understands not only what our customers' need but also how their work fits into the big picture. Those two things together empower people to innovate and build great products. ”
FullStory
Take the time to understand the broader trends driving technology
“ As the leader of a fast-growing, fully remote team, it's easy to get lost in the day-to-day of navigating business as usual. In 2022, I plan to take the time to research, synthesize, and appreciate the broader trends driving technology. What challenges are users facing at a macro-level independent of our product? How are users evolving to address the ongoing uncertainty of COVID-19? What consumer trends can we expect to see in B2B software? This perspective is important to making informed decisions in 2022 and the years ahead.”
Jellyfish
Use our own product every week
“My resolution is for me and my team to use our own product every week. We are in our own target market and are target users. By using Jellyfish as part of our daily work, we will gain empathy for our customers, get a better sense for what's working well and what isn't, and improve our intuition about where to find the next opportunities.”
Gate One
Develop a robust strategic framework that aligns the product vision to metrics
“In 2022, my focus is on developing a robust strategic framework that aligns the vision to product metrics. This enables us to create the right stories that we can tell the business to build engagement and communicate where the business is headed and why.”
Cprime
Learn faster — whether that means success or failure
“In the new year, my resolution is to learn faster — whether that means success or failure. To do this, it means embracing failure, getting something in front of our harshest critics, talking to more customers, and busting down the org chart siloes.”
Slalom
Take a portfolio approach to product investments
“In 2022, we plan to take a portfolio approach to product investments. This will fuel a company’s growth by planning and measuring a mix of innovation, major enhancements, and incremental improvements in product and service offerings. ”
Umbrage
Collaborate more with cross-functional stakeholders
“In 2022, I will become a more holistic-minded PM by collaborating in some capacity with every person in our studio. I believe that I can learn a lot not just from the other product managers, but from our engineering, design, and QA craft team members as well! ”
Product Rocket
Create a culture of learning by doing
“In 2022, our goal is to create a culture of learning by doing. Product management is 99% practice and 1% theory. Learning by doing means stepping out of our comfort zones, getting creative, and taking risks. This year, let's try to find new ways to understand our customers, discover new opportunities, ideate on solutions, deliver exceptional products fit for market, and innovative ways to drive growth. ”
