I love creating games for my kids' birthday parties. This is one in a series of posts documenting some games I created for my kids. In this game, children received a set of clues that led them around the house to find hidden "gems" that were stolen by a Dragon. The theme of the party was medieval fantasy.
The knights received scrolls with a list of clues.
Clues in the scroll led Knights to "gem" locations.
The Knights found the gems in various locations in and outside the house.
Imagine a sailboat on the ocean on a sunny day. Proudly a sail pulls the boat along and is seen by all. This is the light side of management that includes leadership, presenting to the team and execs, and white-boarding ideas with designers and engineers. This is the part of your job that you probably love. Importantly, this is work that is not often explicitly requested but that people will remember most.
Under the water, where it is darker and less visible, the sail boat has a keel to keep it steady. Without it, the boat would capsize in strong wind. On this darker side are administrative tasks like list making, backlog management, and budgeting. No one sees it unless it's broken. It's not particularly fun for most but it's steady and may increase your confidence.
I like the sailboat analogy because of the double meaning here:
The ability to "stay above water" is critical to my success as a product manager. I try to use most high visibility time in the office--maybe it's during stand-ups and in the morning--to be seen and deliver light-side value. Light-side activities are also critical to my happiness as the reason I became a product manager was to work with amazing people to build and sell cool stuff.
Sometimes the dark side of things takes over. At that point I find it important to recognize when it's happening. If administration goes on too long or too heavy, I can feel burnt out, tired, like it's "a slog." To counter this, I spend time reorganizing and prioritizing leadership activities, which energize me.
I ask myself an important question: What is not being asked of me that is needed right now?
Sometimes the answer is a presentation to gain alignment on an idea that's flailing with endless revisions. Other times it's a prototype to share a vision that an exec doesn't get. And sometimes it's an offsite brainstorm or research trip to reenergize the team with purpose.
Thinking about my work in terms of dark side and light side has helped me achieve more balance at work. I don't get bogged down responding to email. I block time for strategy and I make presentations to aid discussions. All of this is guided by how I largely define a leadership mentality: Intuiting what needs to be done and doing it first.
This is another in a series of party games I made for my kids. Each child could follow paw tracks around the house to find stamps to complete their game page. Theme is obviously, Paw Patrol.
Children followed the clues and a trail of paw prints to find stamps for their game board.
As a product management consultant, I am sometimes hired by a company to be a product manager for a particular feature. Most recently, that was cross-platform holiday messaging for a major retailer. What was new to me, was that I was taking on a feature that I didn't design, but needed to revisit and improve. Here are my biggest takeaways.
Don't assume anything. Designs might not reflect the functionality that was built previously. And what was built might not be the best design.
Here are a few steps for revamping an existing feature or product:
* If you have a project manager, ask them to help with these items.
If you're at a startup and all of your features are new, this probably isn't relevant to you. But if your job is to enter a large organization and revamp a feature, this advice might help! Please add your own lessons to the comments.
Happy revamping! :D
Lauren
I consider myself an intermediate environmentalist. I recycle and compost, donate to Goodwill, avoid plastic water bottles, and I respect California drought conditions with short showers. But I still shop a lot and sometimes I buy cheap clothes. Forever 21, H&M and Uniqlo have become my go to retailers for a $5 camisole or t-shirt.
Frankly, I haven't felt bad about my consumption because:
Last night, my perspective changed. I watched the film The True Cost as part of Fashion Revolution Week at the Alliance Française de San Francisco. A panel of sustainable fashion gurus shared their thoughts before and after.
The True Cost was a heartbreaking yet hopeful documentary exposing the impact of NOT ONLY a marketplace in which one can now buy a $5 dollar t-shirt, BUT ALSO a market in which demand for clothing has quadrupled in the last 20 years. It's a race to the bottom and labor conditions improvements cannot keep pace with our increased demand.
Here's what else I learned:
In many ways this film reminded me of Food Inc or Supersize Me, but for fast fashion instead of fast food. If you can imagine that the trend that those films set and the impact they've had on fast food chains like McDonald's and consumer demand projected onto the retail world, then THERE IS A LIGHT at the end of the tunnel.
Within the next five to ten years, with the right influencers touting the benefits of sustainable fashion, we will begin to trend away from our fast fashion consumerism. Companies with perceived integrity will have an opportunity to grab the reins and will profit from this movement.
Here's what I'm going to do differently starting today:
HAPPY EARTH DAY.
Lauren
One of the first party games for my kids. This is kalel's Safari party for Kalel's third birthday.
