I wrote this post for you—product nerd and general fan of the mess—to share with an executive at your company. Product development isn’t their main jam, but they’re whip smart. They’ve watched you make a fool of yourself trying to explain modern product development. They may have said, "Sounds interesting…" but you've received feedback that "the message isn't landing." The books you’ve sent them are lonely in their bookshelf.
It would actually be interesting to go over ALL the trade-offs you mention. There is a lot of experience to share on those that would help people grow in their role.
"Experts are good at acknowledging polarities vs. tradeoffs".
This is such an elegantly simple statement - for a truth that is so foundational, deep and potentially life-changing for many.
In fact, one might argue, one can only be an expert if you are able to disambiguate a straightforward tradeoff to "solve" vs. a polarity you must manage and optimize in a specific context. Nicely done, John!
The feelings when going through the Beginner - Intermediate - Expert stages are fascinating in their own right. When starting out, I distinctly remember reading about certain frameworks/methodologies and being totally onboard (e.g. Scrum, Kanban). Having a "Ah, *this* is it" sense of reassurance.
It's really cool/funny/weird thinking now how dogmatic that perspective is. I'm guessing there's just something there about the comfort of heuristics, especially when you're just starting out, and those best practices opening up your perspective for the first time.
Definitely still happens, I'd say the last two for me were Cost of Delay and North Star Metrics funnily enough, so I guess that's just the natural process of it.
It would actually be interesting to go over ALL the trade-offs you mention. There is a lot of experience to share on those that would help people grow in their role.
Awesome post
Understanding polarity is the mark of expertise, agree 110%
"Experts are good at acknowledging polarities vs. tradeoffs".
This is such an elegantly simple statement - for a truth that is so foundational, deep and potentially life-changing for many.
In fact, one might argue, one can only be an expert if you are able to disambiguate a straightforward tradeoff to "solve" vs. a polarity you must manage and optimize in a specific context. Nicely done, John!
The feelings when going through the Beginner - Intermediate - Expert stages are fascinating in their own right. When starting out, I distinctly remember reading about certain frameworks/methodologies and being totally onboard (e.g. Scrum, Kanban). Having a "Ah, *this* is it" sense of reassurance.
It's really cool/funny/weird thinking now how dogmatic that perspective is. I'm guessing there's just something there about the comfort of heuristics, especially when you're just starting out, and those best practices opening up your perspective for the first time.
Definitely still happens, I'd say the last two for me were Cost of Delay and North Star Metrics funnily enough, so I guess that's just the natural process of it.
This is SO damn good.
Well articulated! Love tthis!
Lonely!
Was there a typo?
Oh LOL yes - LOVELY
Funny typo here 🤣