Words Can Make You Or Break You

Aatir Abdul Rauf

By 

Aatir Abdul Rauf

Published 

Aug 7, 2022

Words Can Make You Or Break You

Product Managers are diplomats. We have to choose our words wisely in the face of unreasonable requests.

If left unfiltered, our raw emotions would come out like this:

1. An executive requests an urgent non-trivial feature 2 days before the current sprint's release date.

In the PM's mind:

"You want to shoehorn this task this late in the sprint? You want me to spec it out and then take the heat from tech too?

And I'm sure you've already validated that this deserves higher priority compared to the rest of the backlog? Pf. "



2. Someone points out how amazing the competitor's user flow is and suggests to copy it.

In the PM's mind:

"It's funny how easily you're asking me to replicate this complex feature that'll consume 100+ dev hours. One would think you're asking me to pick up eggs from the store.

Also, if I do manage to copy the user flow, will you be the one calling me out for not being creative enough to come up with something original?"




3. Team members ask you for the wireframe link, spec ticket or release date over and over again despite sharing it a million times before.

In the PM's mind:

"Can't you just please search the chat history? Stop using me as Intercom support for every thought that crosses your mind."



Sigh. We can't say that, can we?

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