Product Coaching: Unlocking Potential with Future Self
A Guide Inspired by Petra Wille’s Strong Product People. With some help from Bill Campbell, Marty Cagan, Rich Mironov, Ravi Mehta and real data on the Organisational Value Created.
Product management requires continuous growth and development.
“Coaching is no longer a specialty; you cannot be a good manager without being a good coach.” - Bill Campbell
As product leaders, it's our responsibility to help our product managers (PMs) identify and close gaps in their skills and knowledge. Marty Cagan believes a manager’s Job #1 is developing people. Christian Idiodi provided 5 actions to become a better leader and coach and Petra gave us an AMA to help us become stronger product people.
What does good look like?
Before diving into the Future Self framework, we need to define what good looks like. What made a person successful as a Product Manager in the context of your organisation? What does a Strong Product Person look like?
Why Define Your Good?
Defining what makes a "Good PM" is essential for several reasons. It sets clear expectations, helps in making informed hiring decisions, guides PMs' development, and ensures consistent standards across the team. Without a clear definition, product leaders struggle to assess performance, provide meaningful feedback, and support PM growth effectively. This clarity also ensures that all PMs understand what is expected of them and can work towards common goals.
The Role of the Product Leader
As a product leader, your responsibility is to create a tailored definition of a Good Product Manager that fits your organisation. This involves considering industry standards, company culture, team dynamics, and specific product needs. You must also ensure this definition is communicated clearly to your Product Managers and integrated into your hiring, onboarding, and development processes.
How to Define Your Good
1. Define the Product Manager Essence
Identify the core personality traits essential for success in your organisation. Traits like curiosity, emotional intelligence, a desire to make an impact, intellectual capability, adaptability, and being pleasant to work with are a great starting point. These traits are crucial because they underpin a Product Manager's ability to learn, collaborate, and lead effectively. There may be others specific to your organisational context.
2. Define Responsibilities, Skills, and Know-How
Use a structured framework like Petra Wille’s PMwheel to outline the specific responsibilities, skills, and knowledge your PMs need. The PMwheel includes eight key areas:
Understand the Problem: Awareness of user issues, company needs, and market conditions.
Find a Solution: Ability to develop and test solutions collaboratively.
Do Some Planning: Competence in creating and communicating plans.
Get It Done: Effectiveness in working with development teams to deliver products.
Listen & Learn: Capability to gather feedback and iterate on products.
Team: Proficiency in teamwork and leadership.
Grow: Commitment to personal and professional development.
Agile: Understanding and applying Agile principles.
Ravi Mehta’s 12 competencies framework is another approach to use to assess product management competencies, skills and capability.
3. Integrate Company Values
Incorporate your company's core values and principles into your definition. This ensures alignment with broader organisational goals and culture and is why Good isn’t the same everywhere.
The Future Self Framework
Inspired by Petra Wille’s Strong Product People, the Future Self framework is a powerful tool to guide this development process. Here we will delve into the details of this framework, including the necessary prework, steps, and sessions to effectively implement it.
Understanding the Future Self Framework
The Future Self framework is a structured approach that helps Product Managers envision their desired future state and work towards achieving it. It involves a series of steps and sessions designed to identify current gaps, set clear goals, and outline actionable steps for improvement. The framework consists of four main parts:
As-Is: The PM’s current situation.
To-Be: The desired future state after acquiring new skills or knowledge.
Actions: A list of steps to achieve the future state.
Time Frame: The period for follow-ups to ensure progress.
Pre work: Setting the Stage
Before diving into the Future Self framework, it's essential to prepare both yourself and your PMs for the process. This involves a few critical steps:
Initial Gap Identification: Start with a one-hour, one-on-one session to assess the PM’s current situation. Ask them to describe their immediate tasks, mid-term goals, and long-term vision. If they struggle to articulate these, it indicates areas needing development.
Feedback Gathering: Encourage PMs to gather feedback from peers to gain a clearer picture of their current capabilities and areas for improvement. This can provide valuable insights that they might not be aware of.
Implementing the Future Self Framework
With the pre work completed, you can now guide your PMs through the Future Self framework. This process typically involves two main sessions:
Session One: Drafting the Future Self Document
Explain the Framework: Start by explaining the Future Self framework to your PM. Discuss the importance of each section (As-Is, To-Be, Actions, Time Frame) and how they will contribute to their growth.
As-Is Section: Ask the PM to describe their current situation in at least ten sentences. They should include feedback from peers to provide a comprehensive view of their current state.
To-Be Section: Guide the PM to envision their future state. This should be as precise as possible, detailing the specific skills or competencies they aim to acquire and how these will manifest in their work.
Actions Section: List 3-5 actionable steps that will help the PM move from their current state to their desired future state. These actions should be realistic and aligned with their learning style and preferences.
Time Frame: Agree on a realistic time frame for follow-ups. Consider daily work, unforeseen complications, and holidays to ensure the timeline is achievable.
Set Follow-Up Date: Schedule the next session one or two weeks out and ask the PM to send the draft document two days before the meeting.
Session Two: Refining and Finalising the Future Self Document
Review the Draft: Before the session, review the draft document the PM has sent. Provide feedback on each section, ensuring the As-Is section reflects peer feedback, the To-Be section is precise, the Actions are actionable, and the Time Frame is realistic.
Discuss Feedback: During the session, discuss your feedback with the PM. Address any areas that need refinement and ensure the PM understands and agrees with the proposed changes.
Tailor Learning Methods: Ensure the PM's learning methods are suitable for their learning style. Whether it's reading books, attending online courses, or peer-to-peer learning, the methods should be engaging and effective for the individual.
Encourage Peer Collaboration: Suggest forming study groups or finding peers to collaborate with. Peer influence can significantly enhance the learning process.
Balance Challenge and Stress: Ensure the goals set are challenging yet not overwhelming. The balance is key to maintaining motivation and progress.
Follow-Up and Continuous Support
After finalising the Future Self document, it’s crucial to provide continuous support and follow-up to ensure progress. Schedule regular check-ins to discuss the PM’s progress, address any challenges, and provide additional support as needed. Encourage the PM to reflect on their journey, celebrate small wins, and stay motivated.
Petra’s Future Self framework, offers a structured and effective approach to helping Product Managers identify and close gaps in their skills and knowledge. As coaches, Product Leaders can guide their product managers through this framework and help them envision their future selves, set clear goals, and take actionable steps towards continuous improvement.
No Internal Product Coach?
But what happens when everyone in the product team is new to Product Management and the Product Leader is not from Product Management?
While we recommend hiring people with the product experience in these roles, Rich Mironov says you’ll:
Add $269B growth to Shareholder Value
If you’re wondering why having strong product people is important, you only need to look at the value transforming to the Product Model meant for Adobe.
In Transformed, Marty Cagan talks about the transformation Adobe underwent between 2014 and 2017. Shifting their approach meant a huge boost in company value by 2021.
In 2014, Adobe Creative Suite had 6M customers, $2B revenue per year and was worth $13B to shareholders.
By 2021, Adobe Creative Cloud had 26M customers, $11.5B revenue per year and a shareholder value of $269B.
Grow your Product People. Transform your Organisation. Create Shareholder Value.
Need help growing and coaching your Product people? I can help. Drop me an email at irene@phronesisadvisory.com
Are you new to Product Management and want to learn from me?
I created a Course. For people new to Product Management.
Aligned it with the Learning Outcomes created by Product greats like Jeff Patton and others. Had it certified by the globally recognised ICAgile.
Choose to spend 2 days learning from me - either face to face or via Zoom - with ICAgile Certified Professional in Product Management (ICP-PDM).
And if you’re looking for a sneaky discount, send me an email at irene@phronesisadvisory.com