Lance Faulkner

Product Managers: Trying to ‘Influence without Authority’? Here’s your 6-step Guide: With no formal authority as a PM, you need a way to get shit done. Influence is your leverage. Influence is about building trust and using storytelling to herd stakeholders. Toward customer results AND business impact. That’s what makes you a great Product Manager. If managing the human side of PM is your bottleneck to success, here are 6 steps to master. 1/ Listen – Understand how your stakeholders make decisions! ❌ Stop pretending to listen, just so they shut up ✅ Connect as a human. Ask about their key metrics, constraints, and how they decide. Track what is not being said. 2/ Frame – Explain your strategy, using their words ❌ Stop speaking from your view ✅ Tell YOUR story but from THEIR point of view. Show how your roadmap addresses all of their goals & frustrations. (Use this to expose miscommunications!) 3/ Pressure test – Find out who is For and Against ❌ Stop waiting until the big meeting ✅ Identify opposition and what legit concerns they have. Also find supporters and queue them up to help you in the big moments. 4/ Adapt + include – Evolve your strategy based on new inputs ❌ Stop being attached to your ideas ✅ Integrate hidden insights and edge-cases that you couldn’t see before. Mirror back to your stakeholders how you are including them, so they feel seen & heard. (Let them correct you if you are still missing something here!) 5/ Facilitate – Lead the meeting/process ❌ Stop thinking the big presentation is the end ✅ Set expectations, manage the clock, and protect the focus. Make sure the one most important decision is kept front and center. Remind everyone Why this is so important Now. 6/ Review – Actively track & learn in contrast with your original hypotheses ❌ Stop jumping right into the next project ✅ Schedule time to slow down & reflect. Iterate on your understanding of other humans. Point out old conflicts that now have answers. Better understand yourself & plan your next upskilling focus. (7/ Now repeat!) All of these steps make up a structured process to ‘Influence’ your stakeholders. This is how you get shit done in PM! Apply these 6 steps within 1-1 meetings AND over an entire sprint/design cycle. If you struggle with the human side of Product Management, and you need to improve your ‘Influence’ skills. Then here’s how to go deeper ⤵️ 📌 I’ve got an ‘Influence Scorecard’ that breaks down each step of this Guide into ‘beginner’, ‘intermediate’, and ‘expert’ levels. Use it to rank yourself and understand exactly what sub-parts of Influence you are missing. Want access? Send me a DM “influence”. ♻️ Repost this to help other PMs master the art of Stakeholder Influence ➕ Follow along Sam Greenwood for insights on soft skills and stakeholder alignment in Product Management

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🔥 “We need a reorg right away" "We need your product strategy strategy next week" "We need to launch in three weeks” But you just started! Sound familiar? In hindsight, they needed you to start six months ago. But here you are now. I’ve seen this pattern so many times — the pace is relentless, and the space to learn disappears instantly. I recommend a two pronged approach: 💡 Negotiate learning time before Day 1. Propose a 30-30-30 framework: 30 days to learn 30 to analyze 30 to act 💡 Delegate early after Day 1. Put a trusted #2 in charge of operations so you can focus on relationships, customers, and market context. The org ran without you before you arrived. It can run without you a few weeks longer while you get smart. Want more? See my full article in substack. Link is in the first comment below. #First90Days #Leadership #ProductManagement #ExecutiveCoaching

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As a product leader, what's the right way to collaborate with your squads (a.k.a. teams) when setting OKRs? I’ve seen a lot of leaders struggle with this question, especially as they are trying to make sure their squads feel empowered. Is it the product leader's job to set OKRs, or should the squad lead?   Or is it more nuanced, with product leaders responsible for Objectives and the squad responsible for Key Results? Or does it depend on the maturity of the squad (spoiler alert: yes)? Here’s how I like to think about it… The following things should never change, regardless of a squad’s maturity 1️⃣ There should be high collaboration between the leaders and the squad when setting OKRs 2️⃣ Leaders are ultimately responsible for the final version of OKRs 3️⃣ At the risk of stating the obvious, the squad is responsible for figuring out what to build in order to achieve the OKRs 4️⃣ The OKRs should be aligned with the Product Strategy — think of OKRs as squad-specific, quarter-specific expressions of the Product Strategy. What can change as a squad matures is *how* leaders collaborate with their squads in defining OKRs. In practice, the difference really comes down to who proposes what in the first draft. For teams that are new to OKRs, here’s how I recommend leaders and squads collaborate on that first draft. 1️⃣ Product leaders propose 1) Objectives and 2) Key Result *metrics* 2️⃣ Squad comes back with its feedback on the proposed Objectives and Key Result metrics and adds its proposed Key Result *targets* (with the current baseline) Example: 👉 Objective (from leaders): Dramatically reduce the time it takes to onboard a new customer 👉 KR metric (from leaders): Avg days from signature to live 👉 KR target (from squad): 12 days (from 24) by end of quarter Put them together and you get the following OKR: 👉 Objective: Dramatically reduce the time it takes to onboard a new customer 👉 Key Result: Reduce avg days from signature to live from 24 days to 12 days by EOQ As a squad matures, leaders can challenge the squad to take more ownership of the first draft 🧠 More mature squads might propose both the KR targets *and* the KR metrics 🧠🧠 Even more mature squads might propose their own objectives as well, keeping in mind that those objectives need to be aligned with the Product Strategy. But regardless of how mature a squad is, the product leader should never abdicate responsibility for the final version of OKRs.  Otherwise, the product leader isn’t leading enough.

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No BS guide to landing a $775,000 product manager role. That role everybody is sooo hot over right now is actually called product communications and with some companies providing compensation packages up to and even over $1M+ #productmanagement https://lnkd.in/eQCvpPbn

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IC playbook for developing a product strategy Scenario: You're a Snr PM joining a new team. You need a product strategy fast. What do you do? My playbook: 𝗨𝗡𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗡𝗗 𝗘𝗫𝗣𝗘𝗖𝗧𝗔𝗧𝗜𝗢𝗡𝗦 More than just goal setting. Not all expectations have a neat metric. A little context goes a long way. Speak to: • Your line manager • Other senior stakeholders • Your team Find out: • How would they describe success? • Are they expecting you to build anything in particular? • Why is this important? If there's disagreement between senior people, get them in the same room and make them thrash it out. You can't win if there are conflicting priorities. 𝗪𝗥𝗜𝗧𝗘 𝗔 𝗪𝗢𝗥𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗛𝗬𝗣𝗢𝗧𝗛𝗘𝗦𝗜𝗦 Write down your thoughts on your strategy EARLY. Use this to: • Collect your thoughts • Share with others for feedback • Prioritise discovery Answer these questions as best you can: • What does success look like? • Why is this important? • What user problems are we solving? • How will this generate impact for the business? • What might we build to get there? • What are our biggest assumptions? 𝗣𝗟𝗔𝗡 𝗬𝗢𝗨𝗥 𝗗𝗜𝗦𝗖𝗢𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗬 It's never have as much time for research as you'd like. When does your strategy need to be in place? This is your deadline. How much time do you have until then to gather insights? This is your research budget. Decide the best use of your budget. At minimum you should be able to pull existing research and confirm critical numbers. Don't get stressed working cramming all the research you'd 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 to do. Discovery is continuous. You'll adapt as you go. 𝗚𝗘𝗡𝗘𝗥𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗜𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗦 Now you need to work out what to build. Workshop this with the team. Quality of output will depend HUGELY on how well you prep them. Prime the session with: • What success looks like • Problems you're trying to solve • Insights you have Focus on the problems that have most potential. 𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗜𝗠𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗧 From your list of ideas, judge what will be highest impact. In most cases this will be obvious. Check your thinking with an impact model. If it's not obvious then model the impact of the top 3-4 ideas at a high level. Sequence the ideas on impact. Don't factor in effort. Fixing one big thing is much better than lots of little things. 𝗘𝗦𝗧𝗜𝗠𝗔𝗧𝗘 𝗖𝗔𝗣𝗔𝗖𝗜𝗧𝗬 Look at what you delivered last cycle. This can be t-shirt sized (S/M/L features). Use this to estimate what you'll get through this cycle. Don't forget: • Bugs • Ad hoc requests • Tech commitments 𝗖𝗟𝗢𝗦𝗘 𝗟𝗢𝗢𝗣 𝗪𝗜𝗧𝗛 𝗦𝗧𝗔𝗞𝗘𝗛𝗢𝗟𝗗𝗘𝗥𝗦 Ok, now you've got: • Definition of success • Sequence of ideas to tackle • Rough idea of how many you'll get through i.e. a roadmap. Share this with your boss / stakeholders. Explain any gaps with what they wanted / expected. Start shipping. --- Hustle Badger gives practical help to people building great products. → Explore our courses, on-demand resources and community.

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