How do Product Managers end up being overworked?

How do Product Managers end up being overworked?

The Problem

Most will think it’s because they are responsible for too many Products, have unreasonable deadlines, or that it’s just part of the job.

However, some Product Managers create this problem themselves.

Overwork can happen when the PM spends too much time defining and elaborating each task that they are delegating. 

For the designer, the PM creates a high fidelity mockup. For the engineer, the PM writes out a first draft of the technical tasks. For the analyst, the PM does a first pass at a possible set of key result metrics. For the researcher, the PM finds and recruits a list of potential users. To save the team time, the Product Manager meets with the stakeholders on their own. And so on…

In all of these situations, the Product Manager thinks that they are helping their colleagues, saving time or worse don’t have confidence in them. Maybe this behavior has honest origins from when the Product team was much smaller or had less experienced folks on it.

This Product Manager is too much in the weeds.

These types of Product Managers are often seen by outsiders as efficient and even effective. But rarely are they seen as leadership material or visionary. This is more like project manager work and we’d like PMs to act more like CEOs.

From inside the team, these types of Product Managers can be seen as mini-dictators where new ideas are frowned upon. Or more subtly, the team will cease to be interested in the product itself and fall back to just getting their piece of the puzzle figured out and move on.

Some stakeholders create this dynamic by never creating durable teams. It’s hard for Product Managers to deeply engage their teams when they have new designers assigned every other month or have a new lead engineer for each sprint.

So what’s the fix?

The Solution

Instead of working out the details themselves, the Product Managers should build context together.

Gather your core Product team members and develop a shared understanding about the context of the idea everyone will be working on. Rather than create detailed designs for your designer, engage them in a problem finding session where you can explore why users would be interested in the idea. Rather than provide as much detail as possible to the engineer, engage them in a user mapping session where you can work out how the idea will fit into the user’s daily life. Rather than present the wishes of stakeholders, bring the Product team into direct contact with them. Have them learn what the business priorities are from the business leaders.

This context provides the foundation for the Product team members to work out the details on their own.

The Joy

The Product Manager saves their own time and builds a deeper understanding within the team. And the message is clear, all team members are expected to contribute great ideas and learn.

Product managers who lead their teams instead of telling them what to do are seen as leadership material and develop the ability to drive concepts forward without having to do all of the heavy lifting.