Start Messy
In product you are very frequently the point person for delivering ideas to stakeholders. Sometimes those ideas are complex, sometimes they are simple, but today I’ll make the argument that they should always be messy.
Like many product managers, green or experienced, I have fallen prey to the trap of building a beautiful deck, an exquisite document, a gorgeous roadmap, or a lovely logic chart — only to have it dashed by stakeholder whims or the business targeting another objective.
And, like many of us, I have felt that exquisite sting of putting in too much work into producing something to then have it shot down, overlooked, or perceptively “undervalued”. And so, recently, I have found a way to mitigate this. Starting “messy”, even if you don’t want to.
To explain further let’s gather our assumptions:
It doesn’t need to be perfect, to be understood.
Highly polished work can hide the issues.
Bias grows with familiarity.
It doesn’t need to be perfect to get the idea across.
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to forget that’s the case. Perfectionism is a common trait amongst product people. In a formal product role it can often feel as if, in order to get your idea fully realized by clients or internal decision makers, you must present/design/sell your heart out. And yet there is a reason that back of the napkin concepts have risen over time to become monumental companies and industry marvels. Good ideas can hold their own whether they are bound and laminated, or scrawled on a notepad still sprinkled with the dusting of pretzel salt.
In order to break the pursuit of perfectionism, remind yourself that your audience — in many cases — deserve greater credit. Arguably many of your audience are SMEs in their respective fields so they will understand the foundation on which your ideas are built and be able to speak to the concept. If you can start with the assumption that your audience knows the basics, the packaging doesn’t matter nearly as much as the content.
Onto another note about presentation…
Highly polished work can hide the issues.
A good package can change the audience perception on the product, as is well known. How many times have you been disappointed with a meal, a book, a film, or a date based on the “spin” you were first presented with?
In product ideas really only have value when they become something tangible and solicit commitment from all parties; users, planners, makers, and designers. So my prescription is that when first documenting an idea, with the hopes of getting traction with your audience to move into further discovery — keep it light.
Let the idea be judged on it’s own merits, and resist the urge to beautify (or obscure) the concept with artifacts. This will facilitate better conversations and get to the “marrow” of the concept faster.
One area of polish, however, cannot be overlooked: the narrative. Ideas die when they don’t have a champion that can properly articulate their merit. Don’t spend time beautifying presentation when you should, rather, be honing and refining the story. You don’t need artifacts to compel anyone when the dots are well connected and the narrative is complete.
Bias grows with familiarity.
The longer you spend polishing, the more you will love the piece. Intimacy with a concept as a product manager is a dangerous path to go down. I have found that when I spend too much time making something look good to share externally (outside of the safety of my own mind), I begin to infuse more ego into the concept. I believe this is where bias starts to take hold and the objective decision making that is so critical when discovering, designing, or deciding — can become clouded.
High fidelity work, as a first pass, can lead to the creator loving the artifact more than the idea behind it — and then easily conflating the two. When the work you produced to pitch or vet an idea is gorgeous it’s easy to forget why the work was done in the first place.
The proposed solution: Start Messy.
Here’s the case for starting messy, always: Low fidelity means just good enough to convey the concept. It means that the artifact you’ve produced is more about the idea than the medium. It tells a quick story and doesn’t hide it’s vulnerabilities beneath a veneer of high quality “craft” — in whatever form that may take.
The benefits are many:
First: it becomes clear to your audience that the idea is forming and open to input, it invites critique and scrutiny.
Second it keeps your ego, the perception of your own value as it relates to the work, and any creeping bias in the concept masquerading in the artifact — in check.
Third: it’s faster. Ideas in product need velocity in the early stages, so polish only the concept, refine the narrative, invest little in the packaging, and pitch the idea.
Premortem
So when does this not work and when does if cause more trouble than it gains in benefits?
The number one killer of “starting messy” is culture and communication. If your organization is command-and-control in nature, of if communication is challenging (or has a negative lean) — starting messy may be difficult.
If you’re in an organization in which this process improvement tweak will cause issues, remember that most people can appreciate a cost-savings argument in the form of both dollars and time.
In fact, I learned that Matt LeMay (veritable product management icon) has a site and concept built entirely around starting simple and not overpolishing: https://www.onepageonehour.com/ (Thank you to Matt Bartz for making me aware of this!)