Three months in as a PM

July 19, 2021 by spereira.marta

Building up the confidence to change

They say it’s not the destination, it’s the journey. And whilst that is often not true for actual traveling (who loves a 12 hour flight?), it is definitely the way I like to look at my professional path, and this comes with a feeling of pride and a sensation of chaos.

I wrote before about being a generalist and how it is both wonderful and disturbing. When I started working in the SaaS industry 8 years ago as an account manager, I saw it as a good opportunity to be able to pay the tuition fees for my Master’s degree in Economics (I was writing a thesis on wine exports). Now I’m managing a product in a hyper-growth company. In the meantime I’ve lived in two different countries and learned a few lessons on leadership, mostly by failing at it. It’s been an interesting ride, only possible by constantly seeking discomfort and calculating risk. Unless you were born to be a risk-taker and/or have a really great safety net, striking a balance between these two factors is essential.

Being a young girl with a diploma from an Arts school, it’s hard to build up your confidence levels in a male-dominated industry where engineering talent is the market’s most valuable asset. To be honest, it’s hard to feel confident in any context. Also, when you finally get there, you have to face how other people struggle to deal with it. People tend to treat confidence as a personal trait, but like with any other skill, you can work to develop it. To me, the best way to train confidence is through learning, either horizontally (learning something completely new) or vertically (becoming really good at something you already know), but with a strong preference for the first option. There are a couple of things that help with that:

Being mentored by smart people

You can’t push for this – it’s a matter of luck. When I say smart I don’t necessarily mean booksmart (although – unpopular opinion these days – I find that helps), but someone who is capable of having a comprehensive world/market/company vision that is not tied to common biases and assumptions ranging from gender, age, education, family background (…) to your haircut and tone of voice. Someone who values your curiosity, your effort, your ability to organize thoughts and speech, who you feel comfortable talking to and learning from. I don’t like the expression role model as it doesn’t do a very good service to individuality, but someone who respects and protects your intellectual integrity. This is the only way you’ll feel safe asking questions.

Being open to learn autonomously

Indeed, asking questions may be the best way to learn and improve, but the first person you should be asking questions to is yourself. Research. Use technology to your advantage. Read. Try to come up with your own solution to the problem. And then go to others for validation – if you get it, you’ll feel incredible for having achieved that on your own. If you don’t, think about what needs to be done to improve that process for others: see if there’s a gap in an internal knowledge management platform that you can work on, if there’s some training that should have happened during onboarding. Turn your frustration into someone else’s accomplishment. Contribution makes everyone feel better.

Settling in

So the goal for me was to learn a new trade in a new company – switching from a leadership to an associate position – whilst working 100% remotely and raising a one-year-old in the midst of a pandemic.

This is fine mask | Google, Des trucs, Idée dessin

Here are some the key learnings so far:

Users are your source of truth, not the Jira board

If you’re looking for a source of truth about product status, don’t trust the Jira board or sprint reviews – trust users. I also learnt that it is possible to be constantly in touch with your customer and yet not know how the product performs in real usage scenarios. This happens because, in B2B particularly, the person who buys your software is not necessarily the same who’s going to use it.

I don’t think you need to eat your own dogfood. User research offers a variety of techniques that will bring you closer to product usage reality. Just don’t settle with second-hand feedback, as it can be deceiving.

Observe with empathy, react with reason

It’s normal to feel bad when you see something you helped build fail its purpose. And yet this is a very likely outcome of user research. Being able to feel more empathy towards users than pride over your own choices and team work is a lesson I learned the hard way while working in customer success, providing mission-critical software for large enterprise. Being proud of your tech doesn’t pay your salary – happy customers do.

The customer is not a moron, she’s your wife. If it’s not working for them, don’t patronize – save some time to try to get to the root of the problem and come up with a fix. The fix could be a minor tech improvement or a completely new product vision – embrace change without seeing it as a personal or even a corporate failure. However, I think proportionality is also key, because trying to reinvent the wheel every 2 weeks is not sustainable.

Gain access and control

I’d argue that while you don’t need to be your product’s heaviest user, it is a good idea to check the state of the art every time something is deployed to production, even if it’s not a major feature. It’s not a matter of not trusting the QA process – it’s just that there are always tiny interaction details that you missed in the design stage. Iterating over mockups makes me nervous.

I’d also like to add a comment about feature flags. They are great to guarantee smooth feature rollouts to customers, but I found it crucial to have direct control over them: as a PM, I need the flexibility to enable or disable features without disrupting the development cycle. I needed the freedom to decide when to beta test a feature with a customer, or just to enable stuff for testing in internal production accounts.

Don’t fall into the Scrum trap

Scrum provides a framework to organize product development, not product management. It doesn’t offer a lot of guidance when it comes to discovering new features, prioritizing, aligning those priorities with management, making sure your solutions are tightly integrated with the product’s ecosystem, communicating new features to your stakeholders, choosing the best methods for user research, … the list goes on. It’s easy to fall into the trap of organizing our work around ceremonies and ceremony preparation. I adhere to Agile principles but dread the ritualistic vibe it brings to team work. A framework (any framework) is supposed to make your job easier, not define it (this one goes out to all of you hiring product owners).

Build and communicate a vision

Another Agile trap, which I believe comes from a misinterpretation of its main principles, is that long-term planning and vision statements are no longer useful. Value is more easily delivered if you adopt short cycles and constant iteration. I don’t argue with this, but I do argue that this is not incompatible with having a long-term vision for a product. MVPs deliver value, but they don’t inspire people. Having that inspirational story to tell is helpful to gain internal alignment, to deliver marketing messaging, to motivate. A vision is not a one-time commitment – it’s a compass for everyday decisions and is constantly evolving.

Go for that swim

On a final note – I live by the beach in the north of Portugal, where sea temperatures range between 15-17ºC in summer months. It’s beautiful and cold. I stand for long minutes with my feet on the wet sand getting mentally ready to take a plunge. Then I look to the side and there’s a group of kids just playing around in the water, completely indifferent to the fact that it’s 20ºC below their body temperature. I feel silly and old. But I’m not, so I go for it.

The same goes for the job. I’m overly conscious of my limitations, and that frustrates me. But then I realise I’m just a kid, I can learn anything. So I just go for that swim.

Internet business: is privacy our biggest problem?

January 22, 2021 by spereira.marta

The good news about privacy is that eighty-four percent of us are concerned about privacy. The bad news is that we do not know what we mean.
Anne Wells Branscomb

The Great Migration

Last week we witnessed a modern age boycott movement with millions of users replacing Whatsapp with Signal or Telegram in protest against Whatsapp’s privacy policy changes, which people believed would allow data sharing with its parent company, Facebook. A few days later, the media clarified that not only was the update related to something else entirely, but that data sharing with Facebook has been happening since 2016 for a majority of users.

This episode is the perfect illustration of Branscomb’s quote. The public is confused. People feel someone’s taking something from them and using it for profit. Not only is this true, but it’s pretty much the business model of the internet as we know it, and it has been happening for years.

The web: a broken business model?

If we hold this as unacceptable, we need to acknowledge that the whole thing is broken, and we need to start paying to use search engines, maps, social networks, email services, browsers, video streaming platforms, productivity apps and, last but not least, to access media websites, both news and entertainment. I can hear you in the background: what about open source? There are wonderful projects out there, but can we really imagine what the internet would look like today if it wasn’t for the money poured into tech companies by investors? Where would we be if the entire web was donation-based?

Almost 90% of Google’s revenue comes from advertising

Can advertising survive without our data?

So let’s assume for now that the advertising industry will keep financing most of our beloved services. Can’t they survive without our data?

They can – but not as efficiently. Segmenting the population using socio-demographic data and choosing target audiences is not something that was born with digital advertising – it’s what people in marketing and communication have been doing for ages. The difference now is that not only can they reach that target much more effectively, but they can also measure differences in the return of their investment when they fine-tune their audiences. So, in theory, everyone who owns a business can benefit from this.

What are we giving away, and to whom?

Going back to privacy. Where is the line crossed? Think of your browsing history from this morning. You read the news on ABC, went to Amazon, and checked your Gmail inbox. In the first two, you might or might not log into a user account. Even if you don’t, you will see a message asking for your consent to collect browsing information – although this will not include any Personal Identifiable Information (PII), such as your name, phone number or email address. The same isn’t true for your inbox, which necessarily requires login. However, although they own it, Google’s promise is that they do not sell your PII. Note that If you do all of this browsing using Chrome, then Google automatically knows all about your browsing history.

This, by the way, makes Chrome’s third-party cookie ban all the more ironic. All major browsers are banning third-party cookies: bits of information that are created by domains other than the one you are visiting (hence the “third-party” designation) and that are placed on your browser to collect information about your behaviour across websites. This information is usually stored in platforms called DMPs – Data Management Platforms – marketplaces where companies can buy audiences for their ads. The third-party cookie phase out reflects society’s growing concerns about their privacy: when you enter a website and accept cookies, this should mean that that the company behind that particular website may use your data for specific purposes (stated in the consent declaration), rather than having it for sale in undisclosed ad platforms. However, what this means in practice is that segmentation and profiling power will be even more concentrated in the hands of the two giants: Google and Facebook.

And here’s where I come to my conclusion. Yes, it’s annoying to see companies profiting from their knowledge of what we do online, particularly when their ways to inform us and obtain our consent are all but transparent. However none of us seems predisposed to start paying for their services instead. Furthermore, as far as we know, our PII is still protected. What frightens me is not the business model, but the size of these data monopolies, how much power they hold, and how they can use it to influence policy-making to their own advantage – and this may include privacy regulation.

It’s scary that, as citizens, rather than demanding our governments for more regulation and control over competition, taxation and privacy, we just blame company executives or company policy – as if companies were created to safeguard social ethics rather than maximising profit. I accept there is no such thing as a free lunch, but I don’t accept the world to be ruled by a handful of CEOs.

Female Leadership and Empathy: a cautionary tale

January 10, 2021 by spereira.marta

The purpose of this article is not to talk about gender inequality in the workplace in general. Data on that subject is very clear, and the COVID-19 crisis could set women back half a decade. Denying reality is not a matter of opinion but of ignorance.

What I would like to discuss is how a few preconceived notions (which are ultimately gender-related) create obstacles in the path to leadership for young women such as myself.

1. Empathy is a leader’s most important skill

We all know horrible bosses. People who will call you late in the evening to ask for something that could perfectly well wait until the next day, who take credit for your work, who take pride in humiliating you in front of your colleagues. These are normally individuals with very low self-esteem who feel validated by their place in the hierarchy – they see their role as a sort of carte blanche to exploit others.

The prevalence of a toxic work culture that fostered and rewarded bullies is the reason why empathy is now seen as a fundamental skill for leaders, perhaps even the most important. Empathy is defined as the ability to share someone else’s feelings or experiences by imagining what it would be like to be in that person’s situation. We intuitively accept that it’s a good thing to put ourselves in other people’s shoes, to feel their pain – this is what makes us moral, loving people who are incapable of harassing other people.

I argue that this is not true. Sharing someone’s feelings is great to create emotional bonds, but it’s a really poor guide to decision-making – which is what a leader is supposed to do. Let’s say you lead a team of people who permanently avoid collaboration with one of its members due to a personal quarrel. How would empathy guide you to solve this conflict? Should you empathise with the majority and reinforce their attitude? Or should you put yourself in the shoes of the excluded element and confront the group? If you show an understanding towards both parties of a quarrel, you will probably be seen as a two-faced cynic, neither will trust you.

As professor Paul Bloom puts it,

“Empathy is a spotlight focusing on certain people in the here and now. This makes us care more about them, but it leaves us insensitive to the long-term consequences of our acts and blind as well to the suffering of those we do not or cannot empathize with.”
Paul Bloom, Against Empathy

Great leaders are known for their courage to take just decisions even if they are unpopular.

2. Empathy requires constant rewarding

It’s easy to understand why leaders who use empathy as their moral compass will often reward their team members. They understand and feel bad for their lack of motivation. The solution? A pat on the back, some praise and a bonus are surefire ways to change the mood. There’s nothing wrong with this in principle: people should indeed be rewarded for their contributions. But what if there’s something wrong with their performance? What if they don’t put up the expected effort? Or perhaps they do, but results keep falling short?

Rewards are part of the positive reinforcement process. What happens when you reward behaviour that doesn’t match your expectations? You’re just trying to keep morale up under false pretenses.

Some may argue that this is a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg. Motivation leads to better performance, and recognising good performance leads to more motivation. This is absolutely true, but it needs to be based on honesty – and that’s the difficult part. As a leader, you need to be able to recognise your team’s victories and failures – and some people will commit the same mistakes more than once, regardless of how much support you offer. They might be going through a difficult time, they might have low self-esteem, and whilst you’re mindful of their personal context, you still need to be honest with them. Respectful, but honest.

3. Women are naturally more empathetic than men

It’s not a secret that gender shapes people’s expectations, and the world certainly expects women to be more empathetic than men.

Stereotypically, females are portrayed as being dominated by emotion, whilst males are austere and rational. This idea, assimilated by both men and women, explains the societal roles (personal and professional) commonly assigned to each gender.

Although there have been several attempts to attribute this difference to biology (by the way, as some did to try to justify racism), it’s easy to understand that it was culture that brought us here. Historical discrimination in access to education and voting rights, paired with our model of motherhood, has reinforced women’s portrait as an ignorant, fragile human being who is mostly concerned with how other people are feeling.

This has multiple perverse consequences. First, young women do not develop the self-esteem they need to choose their futures freely. Second, when they do, they need to put on additional effort than their male counterparts to reach top jobs. And third, even when they do get to be leaders, they’re expected to refrain from taking tough decisions, having difficult conversations or fighting for their ideas.

Caring for others is one of the best things in life. That’s why our families and friends are our main source of happiness. Being able to read beyond people’s apparent behaviour, being considerate of other people’s struggles – all of it makes us better professionals, and better humans actually. However, leadership requires decisive action, and I’m yet to find consensual examples of it – so get ready for some opposition, but don’t let it stop you from doing the right thing.

“The Old Testament tells us to love our neighbors, the New Testament to love our enemies. The moral rationale seems to be: Love your neighbors and enemies; that way you won’t kill them. But frankly, I don’t love my neighbors, to say nothing of my enemies. Better, then, is the following ideal: Don’t kill your neighbors or enemies, even if you don’t love them.”
Steven Pinker, The Better Angels of Our Nature

We, the Generalists

January 1, 2021 by spereira.marta

A vocation makes life a lot simpler for those who have it.

I have always envied those who wake up in the morning to become dedicated athletes, obstinate chefs in the search of perfection, novelists who cannot stop making up new scenarios and characters, architects who design buildings in their sleep.

Their path is clear, it goes in one direction only.

What about wretched generalists such as myself? Who have always wanted to explore literature, but feel they have a mission in politics, live with a deep sorrow for not having pursued their scientific studies, have an interest in technology, want to do something for the environment, for education, to improve the life of the elderly… and in the end they don’t do any of these things (professionally), but something completely different which, by the way, they enjoy as well.

There’s a thin line between curiosity and anxiety.

Having multiple interests and exploring them was great for Renaissance polymaths as life was slow (and without social media), but nowadays it’s just painful because there is no time.

The world, whether rightfully or not, whether people admit it or not, values specific experience and the official track record over adaptability and love and dedication for learning. It doesn’t really care about who we are, it cares for what we do. And if we can become what we do, well – that’s even better, judging by the success of “personal brands” and people whose lives are essentially advertising inventory.

The constant feeling of falling short on something (a bit like FOMO, but not exactly) keeps us awake at night. And if we can’t sleep, our brains get even messier. We make lists with all the books we haven’t read, all the projects we haven’t started… and the rain outside keeps falling, the world keeps turning.

The baby is asleep. Perhaps that’s the most important thing right now. She’ll teach me everything I need to be happy.