The "X" Files (65.57% of 2024 Edition)
In 2024, I started writing short dialogues on LinkedIn. I like the format Simon Wardley uses on Twitter, where he has a conversation with “X” (this was before “X,” if you know what I mean). I realized yesterday that I’ve written 15 of these in 2024, 65.57% of the way through the year!
Who is X?
To quote a friend:
LOLLING because I have had this conversation 100 times
“X” is not one person—because I’ve had these conversations many times (with slight variations). I’ve also had friends recount these conversations many, many times. 99% of time “X” is not evil, completely incompetent, or an asshole. We just happen to work with people with very diverse views about how things should be.
And with that, I bring you “The X-Files” (65.57% of 2024 Edition).
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1-Consistent Sprint Length
X: "We need consistent sprint lengths across the company. And a consistent definition of a point and an epic!"
Me: "Why? Some teams don't use sprints and points? Or even epics?"
X: "Reporting. It makes it easier to compare apples to apples."
Me: "Are teams working in the same context? Would apples to apples comparisons even be possible?"
X: "We need a standard. Two weeks is the standard, right? What is the extra effort involved in points, anyway?"
Me: "I'm less concerned about the standard -- because teams will just work around it if they need to -- and more about the assumption of apples to apples comparisons. Also, this is still overhead."
X: "This is so pedantic and theoretical. Do people care as much as you?"
Me: "No. That's kind of the point. If they don't care, what does that tell us?"
X: "How is a leader like me supposed to get a bird's eye view?"
Me: "Is a super lossy bird's eye view ok? Like if you know the view you're getting doesn't tell us much?"
X: "It is really about standards! Something needs to be consistent!"
Me: "Standards when used effectively create beneficial consistency. If teams are just working around this to humor you, does that have the desired effect? If someone was asking you to jump through a hoop that didn't really reflect reality 'just because', how would you feel?"
X: "Hah. Welcome to leadership. You don't have people banging down your doors wondering about how efficient we are, and asking why some teams aren't shipping..."
Me: "Interesting. This feels like we're getting to the deeper problem to solve."
X: "Yes. Do you know how little information we have as executives to answer this question. I'll take anything! It's like NPS. Everyone knows it is a sham, but it is something."
Me: "OK. I appreciate you sharing this. I think we can make progress on that problem."
X: "2 weeks sprints, points, and a definition of an epic. That's all I need."
Me: "...."
2-Open-Ended Priorities
X: “if we are too specific about priorities, people will do the bare minimum and stop. Better to set unrealistic goals…”
Me: “Interesting. Do you believe that applies to all people?”
X: “it’s human nature…”
Me: “All humans?”
X: “Well it doesn’t phase A players. They’d shoot for the stars anyway and deliver. For B and C players it does. So it works.”
Me: “Do you see potential risks with this?”
X: “Not really. You? Better to be ambiguous and be surprised.”
Me: “I think the main issue would be that you don’t apply energy where you have the most leverage. That people work hard but it is too diffuse…”
X: “Hmmm.”
Me: “Also I have to say that I don’t know many people who just stop. If anything their desire to do good work leaves them prone to burnout and juggling too many plates.”
X: “Yeah. That happens to the best, and they learn. I don’t worry about it.”
Me: “Another thing is that I think people can tell you are being intentionally ambiguous. They feel it is manipulative.”
X: “Gotta keep people on their toes, right?”
Me: “…”
3-When Will It Be Done?
X: "When will it be done?"
Me: "I'm 90% confident it will be done between Oct 15 and Dec 15."
X: "Quit the hedging. When will it be done?"
Me: "When do you need it done? We can treat it as a fixed date, variable scope effort. That way, we'll be 100% likely to be done on that date."
X: "No. When do we get all of it?"
Me: "If we invested a week of solid research and analysis, we might be able to tighten that confidence interval of ~60 days by around 10 days. Stopping work for 7 days in exchange for 10 days more certainty doesn't exactly seem worth it to me—especially since if we invest 7 days in DOING it, the interval will drop naturally. But if it is important to you?"
X: "Ugh. This is why people distrust software developers. All this hedging. Prima donnas. All of you! When will it be done?"
Me: "Sorry. I thought this was being responsible. OK. We'll have it done by Dec 15. There's still a 5% chance it could take longer, but I'm willing to take that risk. I'm committing to Dec 15."
X: "That's too late! You're just playing it safe!"
Me: "You're right! I was willing to offer up a range between Oct 15th ... two months earlier ... and Dec 15th. That wasn't good enough. So yes, I will play it safe."
X: "You don't get it. We need to increase our say/do ratio, but show we're willing to make this a priority and get it done quickly."
Me: "So let me get this straight. Our priority is to get this done in a timeframe that roughly meets or exceeds some sort of generalized expectation of how long it should take—and not be perceived as sandbagging. We should propose a date now, and the goal is to hit that date—not before, not after. Dec 15 is too late. Give me a second...."
X: "Waiting"
Me: "Dec 1st"
X: "OK? You sure?"
Me: "Yeah. We will treat it like a variable scope effort. It is the best I can do. I'll have to be prepared to have hard discussions with people about what we had to cut. Everyone will have a holiday brain anyway, so there's a 100% chance that we'll be delayed by someone internally, and then if it takes to Dec 15th, I'll be able to blame it on them. Sign us up for Dec 1st!"
X: "You're a psychopath!"
Me: "Perhaps. Doing my best...."
4-Debt Interest
X: "I'd say we're burning around 50% of our time wading through debt, high WIP, administrative tasks, and trying to just middle through..."
Me: "My god. That is a lot...especially considering the recent layoffs. It makes any cost savings seem like a drop in the bucket. Like saving 10% on gas, for a car that gets terrible gas mileage."
X: "I know, I know. We all know. But no one is willing to say it out loud."
Me: "Why?"
X: "A couple reasons. First, people who were outspoken somehow aren't around any more. There's a lot of pressure to be positive and upbeat. And frankly, by the time we're asked to prove it, and by the time there's no response....what's the use any way?"
Me: "That's really tough..."
X: "I'm not even bitter. It is like everyone has come to a certain peace about the situation. Job market isn't great. Everyone is in wait-and-see mode."
Me: "But it must make you....frustrated? To wade through that much muck?"
X: "It used to, but I have gotten a lot better at finding ways to stay busy in moderately interesting ways."
Me: "Putting yourself in the shoes and leadership, what do they see?"
X: "Can you imagine how hard it would be to walk into a meeting with investors, whoever and say 'um, you thought you had a 30 mpg car, and it is a 15 mpg car?"
Me: "Damn, that would be hard."
X: "Yeah. It wouldn't matter how well-meaning everyone was, you'd probably get fired in two seconds. That's the puzzle, and it flows down layers of management. Everyone is caught in a version of the dynamic."
Me: "Wow, right. And it escalates and escalates. What could you see fixing this?"
X: "We'd need freedom to call it like it is without fearing getting personally blamed, or for our managers and their managers to get blamed."
Me: "Which almost gets harder and harder due to the escalation..."
X: "Yeah. Impossible I'd say. But I still wish it was possible."
Me: "Well good luck. Stay hopeful I guess...."
5-Big Meetings
X: "A meeting that big would be a huge waste of time..."
Me: "Interesting! Those are the people involved, right?"
X: "Yes. But we can't possibly get anywhere with 25 people trying to make decisions."
Me: "Backing up, those 25 people will be making decisions though? They will be making decisions every day related to the effort?"
X: "Well yes. But it would be so inefficient! 25 people!"
Me: "I realize that it would be nice if 25 people weren't involved...but they are. I'm not sure you can wish/will away that fact by not getting the people together."
X: "But this is why we have managers! This is why we have product, project, and program managers!"
Me: "I realize how some decisions and questions would be better made in smaller groups, but wouldn't it be worth at least some attention to the whole group? A kickoff? Maybe some working agreement breakouts? Some Q&A? Maybe a pre-mortem exercise? This is the working group."
X: "Everyone is so busy! They are complaining about meetings all the time."
Me: "That might make it even more important. I've noticed everyone is busy, but not a lot is actually getting done. And people are drowning in dependencies for all the other efforts they are doing that involved lots of people. And you've had some misses lately. Maybe think of this as a bit of an insurance policy?"
X: "Hmmm. But we're talking at least 4hrs! Maybe even a whole day?"
Me: "Is it worth investing a day to improve the probability that the team will achieve the goal? It might even save a lot of rework and false starts which are costly. Not guaranteed, but if I were a betting person...."
X: "Our focus is on efficiency. It simply isn't the most efficient way to work."
Me: "Is efficiency more important than efficacy? Are things working so well that you just need to eek out the remaining couple % points of efficiency?"
X: "Hmm....It just feels like a waste!"
Me: "I do think that we should rethink the architecture, org structure, etc. to make meetings like this less necessary. That is the ideal. But in the spirit of pragmatism, we kind of need to deal with today's reality...."
X: "How long will that take? Let's just do that..."
....to be continued
6-Need to Hold Someone Accountable
X: "I need to hold someone accountable for this!"
Me: "Why?"
X: "What does that say about the company if we can let things get this broken, and we can't hold anyone accountable for it? You’ve gotta have a plan.”
Me: "What do you do if lots of people—including you—had some level of involvement in things ending up how they are right now? What then?”
X: "Then you fall into ‘if everyone is responsible, no one is responsible’. You have to draw the line somewhere, right? I’m not perfect, obviously, but I’m not the VP in this case.”
Me: “I’m sensing you want to take swift, decisive action and send the right message to the team, investors, and other leaders. Is there a risk here that getting rid of Y will not actually improve things?”
X: “Hmmm. Maybe? But that can’t stop us from shaking things up. That will be the replacement's responsibility. I have to believe that things aren’t just messed up. Otherwise we should all go home.”
Me: “This may be hard to hear, but multiple team members have given feedback that they thought letting Y go was pure optics, and that leadership isn’t addressing the elephant in the room. What do you think about that?”
X: “That’s easy to say! But I bet they aren’t responsible for taking action. You’re never going to take action without some people complaining from the sidelines. And I bet that’s like 2% of people. Most people aren’t saying that.”
Me: “OK. Do you think there’s an opportunity to take *some* responsibility here? And maybe discuss some things you might do differently? I see you feel strongly about holding Y accountable for this. But you can also play a part in sending the right message.”
X: “Maybe. What would I even say? Every word I say is hyper-scrutinized, and it is important to be positive.”
Me: “Maybe it isn’t what you say. It is what you do. Your actions will speak a thousand words.”
X: “Exactly. This is why it is important to hold …. Wait … I see what you did there.”
Me: 🤷🏼♂️
7-Idealized Product
X: "I'm so incredibly excited. We just got the whole team together for multiple days of making sense of things together! It was so invigorating. It was so collaborative."
Me: "Incredible! I'm happy to hear that."
X: "Yeah. We're so happy to be actually doing product."
Me: "I bet."
X: "It's nice to not be reading books and listening to podcasts and constantly thinking...yeah, that's so far away for our team."
Me: "Here's something to consider. 80% of the teams that get touted as 'the best' don't do the type of activity you did. People are too busy. Performance driven development is rampant. Hand-offs are more common than you think. Some of the biggest feature factories and chasers of short-term metrics are the companies people idolize."
X: "But I thought the thing we did was normal?! It's a best practice!?"
Me: "No. We're getting to the point where the idealized version of product management is encouraging some teams to actually do a much better job than the teams they are trying to emulate. You're approaching it with a level of curiosity and eagerness to learn that most people aren't."
X: "Huh. I hadn't thought of it that way."
Me: "Don't sell yourself short. What you did at [YourCo] is a major win. It would be a big step for ANY company. Another thing...try being a product manager at [BigCo] and suggesting any kind of change in the way things work outside of your team and see what happens. If you suggested what you suggested, people would be skeptical."
X: "Interesting."
Me: "Keep up the amazing work. Stop feeling like you are catching up. Starting imagining that you are leading the way because you are."
8-Productivity and Performance
X: “We need objective metrics on individual developer productivity and performance!”
Me: “Silly question, I know, but what exactly do you mean by objective?”
X: “Um…you know, objective. Unbiased. Facts. Not just one person’s opinion.”
Me: “I ask because a metric like # of pull requests, for example, might be considered objective, but it has low construct and content validity if you're hoping to measure developer performance.”
X: “Construct what? Content what? Why is this so hard!? Engineering isn’t magic!”
Me: “Construct validity is basically how well the measurement tool measures the theoretical concept it claims to measure. Content validity is basically how well the measurement covers the full range of the concept it's supposed to measure.”
X: “OK. But what if # of pull requests basically correlates with someone being good?”
Me: “Imagine you're a manager. Would asking a developer to create as many pull requests as possible be guaranteed to turn them into a high performer? Would it guarantee your team was effective? This is about criterion-related validity actually."
X: “Whenever I have this discussion, it feels like engineers are so elitist and don't want to take responsibility.”
Me: “In a lot of domains, performance is measured by gathering the perspectives of more experienced people and/or people who work with the person. For example…peer reviews, evaluating an athlete, peer critiques/feedback sessions, the list goes on.”
X: “Ugh. Here we go. But what if managers are covering their behinds? What if they aren’t close to the details? Can’t we have something more objective?”
Me: “Got it. It feels like you have a vague sense that the team could be doing more, but you don’t feel like you’re getting the straight story? Hence wanting the metrics?”
X: “I *know* we could be getting more done. But all I seem to get from managers is finger pointing and making excuses. Look, I’m under a lot of pressure here from finance….”
Me: “If you know, then is this a problem?”
X: “I know it. But I need to prove it. I need it to be objective!”
Me: “So you know it subjectively, but you need to prove it objectively? OK. So that’s a different problem. Your goal is to have evidence people can agree on as a way to ask the team to work harder, and take action if they aren’t.”
X: “You got me….”
Me: “Taking a slightly different approach—it sounds like this is about building confidence that we’re working efficiently and having an impact? And improving? I ask because that is a different measurement problem. If your goal doesn’t involve singling out individual productivity, we could probably figure something out. Measuring to improve is different from measuring to prove.”
X: “But….”
9-Complainers and Blamers
X: "I hate complainers and blamers."
Me: "Are you complaining about them? I'm joking! I'm joking!"
X: "Well played. No. I just hate people who blame everyone for their problems, for the company's problems, for everything...."
Me: "Do you think there are situations where blame is reasonable?"
X: "Sure. I mean when someone truly drops the ball—blame might be justified. But it's the chronic blamers and complainers that get me. It feels like they're just deflecting instead of trying to be part of the solution."
Me: "What's the difference between someone complaining (or blaming), and someone trying to help by raising an issue? Speaking up can be hard and stressful—people aren't always smooth."
X: "Intention? Someone trying to help offers a solution, or at least conveys what they'd like to work towards. Complainers just point fingers. They don't add anything."
Me: "But what if complaining is their way of signaling that they don't feel heard, or that they're having trouble finding a way forward? What's the best way to tell the difference between someone who is just venting, and someone raising a concern that might need help?"
X: "Thinking...outside of work I've definitely had some moments where I've complained about things not because I wanted to vent, but because I was frustrated, didn't feel heard, and didn't know how to fix something. Not many, though. At work, I don't know what it is, but I'm kind of triggered by people complaining."
Me: "Why?"
X: "For me, complaining has always been a signal of weakness. It is hard to admit, but growing up my parents were never really supportive when I voiced concerns or complained. They'd just tell me to toughen up. I internalized that. I was also the older sibling. My younger brother and sister got away with so much crap. Maybe I don't have patience for it, because I never had that space myself."
Me: "Thank you for sharing that."
X: "So what are you suggesting I do differently? Or are you complaining that I overreact when people complain!? (Laughs)"
Me: "You tell me!"
X: "I guess I could accept that this triggers me. That I get annoyed. And maybe at least try to inquire more. See if this is actually a request for help. Try to listen without seeming impatient. I'm not going to become one of those people who humors everyone's venting session, but I could be a bit better here."
Me: "Sounds good! I have some stuff I'll complain about tomorrow."
X: "Oh great."
10-Lots of Reports
X: "A good manager should be able to handle 8-12 reports!"
Me: "That's interesting. How did you come to believe that?"
X: "Well, back when I was a manager in the early years, I didn't have trouble with eight reports. Also, I've been doing research into other companies, and X who just joined from BigCo was talking about how they worked there."
Me: "I can imagine contexts where it might be effective. What is the key factor in your mind?"
X: "The experience and attitude of the manager, of course. When we were growing so fast, we let the bar drop, I think."
Me: "When you talk to the managers who, in your mind, aren't cutting it, how do they discuss their workload? Where do they invest their time and energy? What is their day to day like?"
X: "Hah. You think people will be honest about that stuff? It isn't objective. Plus I'm super busy. It isn't like I have time to talk to everyone. I was chatting with [Early Employee] who talked about their manager, and the story wasn't pretty."
Me: "Imagine for a moment you could magically hire managers from BigCo—more like X—how would they fare? What would they do?"
X: "Oh geez that would be great. I'm not sure we could afford them, except in the current job market maybe we'd have a shot. But they'd get ***t done!"
Me: "Back to the question...what would be different? What conditions would they be operating under?"
X: "They'd be pushing their teams more. They would run a tighter ship. The ratios would be better. Finance would be happier! And we'd have a flatter org."
Me: "Sorry, maybe I'm not asking my question correctly. They would be operating in the current environment. When I've chatted with the managers, they describe having to spend a lot of time managing dependencies, managing up, and doing administrative work...often to produce reports that you consume (I assume). I'm not sure there's enough time in the day to manage 8-10 people unless something changes."
X: "OK. But better managers would push back!! They would be calling that out!"
Me: "Have you chatted with managers about the feedback cycle? Whether they've had positive experiences calling out challenges? What happens to the messengers here?"
X: (More frustrated) "Hmmm. All I know is that with the right people we'd be able to have better ratios. The rest is an excuse. We can't have people who keep making excuses—that's not leadership."
Me: "I can tell this is causing you tension."
X: "Yeah. I mean it's frustrating. I can't be everywhere and anywhere. I wish I could. And I have investors breathing down my back with industry reports. We have to do *something*!
Me: "This is a thought experiment, and please opt out if you want, but what could you do to help existing managers more comfortably manage more people? Assuming that even under the best of circumstances, you can never hire everyone you want to hire?"
X: "I'm going to have to think about that..."
11-Managers Who Push Back
X: "We need managers to push back! Who can influence! Who can get into the details! Who can drive results! We have agency and a growth mindset!"
Me: "OK. Curious, what would happen if it was just easier to work here? Less to push back on? Fewer people to influence? Fewer details to keep in your head? Easier to drive outcomes? Fewer situations requiring deep agency to surmount?"
X: "I'm not sure what you mean? We need goods managers! Work isn't supposed to be easy!"
Me: "I get that. But say for a moment you had a garden that was struggling—that needed some TLC. Would you first instinct be 'We need better plants?'"
X: "No, I guess not. But that is different. We need A players!"
Me: "A player? Or players playing their A game?"
X: "A player playing their A game! An A player knows how to play their A game in different conditions!"
Me: "Would a highly skilled nurse be able to provide the same level of care in a disaster situation? If a hospital had a huge rush?"
X: "I guess not..."
Me: "I'm curious why the idea of fostering a healthy environment triggers you?"
X: "We don't run a daycare here!"
Me: "Sorry, I see that this *is* really triggering for you. I didn't mean to bring up parent/child feelings for you. I apologize."
X: "It's just that I don't want all sorts of processes. Why can't people just work together? Why can't we just trust people to be competent and work things out?"
Me: "OK. That makes sense. Do you feel that spending too much time on fostering a healthy environment is somehow process-centric and invasive? That it is micro-manager-y?"
X: "Yeah. Good people should be able to work things out. We run an engagement survey. We hold managers accountable for team health."
Me: "I understand. But what *if*—just if, play along—you could take actions that would improve outcomes for your customers and team?"
X: "Hmmm...."
12-An Hour A Day
x: "I'm only working an hour a day. Tough, but it is what it is."
me: "Wow. How do you feel about that?"
x: "I hate it. I have a good four to six hours in me. So one hour feels ****y."
me: "What happens when you bring this up?"
x: "Well that's the thing...when I bring this up, I get a lot of pressure to stop raising the issue. No one wants to rock the boat at the moment. I offered to move to another team to help out, but my manager said that the optics on that would be terrible. I offered to refactor some things to unblock the dependency that is causing all this. Too contentious. So I stopped."
me: "That sounds really hard. What do you do the rest of the day?"
x: "I've been doing this for a while, so in an hour I get a decent amount done. I'm doing some courses. I attend meetings. I try to be a good team citizen. I'm mentoring one of our new developers. I do all of the paperwork and admin stuff we need to do like status checks, writing docs for review."
me: "Someone notices this, right?"
x: "I'm not sure. It is like we've become desensitized. Everything moves slowly. Everyone knows something is up. Everyone knows that priorities will change quickly. But everyone is worried about the narrative that could unfold, and the finger pointing. I'm a couple years at this gig. When I started, there was more of a sense of togetherness on the team. Now people are worried about being thrown under the bus."
me: "But don't you need to present your team's progress?"
x: "We do. Actually our PM does. We have like four minutes in a big meeting. So basically we say yes, yes, point to some progress, and it is over. You'd be amazed how many ways you can game 'agile' metrics. Want more velocity? Here you go...."
me: "But how does this feel as a professional?"
x: "Not great. Trying to motivate myself to act, but it is tough at the moment."
13-150 Projects In Progress
Me: "OK, you have about 150 projects in progress"
X: "My god...."
Me: "Yeah, it is a lot"
X: "I mean that is way too many for the exec team to review. Can you make the list shorter? Do you like a 'Top Projects' list?"
Me: "Um, maybe? Talk about that more?"
X: "A list of the extra special projects that the exec team cares about!"
Me: "I guess? But that doesn't fundamentally change the fact that you have 150 projects in progress?"
X: "That's ok. Because by saying this is the list of important projects, people will make sure to focus on these 15 projects!"
Me: "So teams are allowed to let the other 135 projects slip? Like that's OK? If they learned, tomorrow, that 95% of their money was going to these top 15 projects, would they be good with that?"
X: "Well. No. I mean work can't stop, if you know what I mean? There still are expectations. But these are the focus projects if that makes sense?"
Me: "Sort of. I'm worried because it seems like the question 'Where is our money going?' is pretty common these days. Like whenever you create these abbreviated lists, the question inevitably becomes 'Where is the money going? And why is stuff taking so long?' You dig in to answer that question and discover big lists of projects. And then you find out that there was no real prioritization, and that teams were incentivized to take on way too much work which made everything go slow. They did massive heroics on the visible 15 AND the other stuff. And then the more work there is, the more pressure there is for a simplified list. And history repeats?"
X: "I just don't see how that team will look at a list of 150 things? It makes anyone's head hurt. Could we do a BAU vs. New Projects thing?"
Me: "I've cut the work that way already .... 80% BAU, 20% New Projects"
X: "Perfect! We can just show the New Projects!"
Me "......"
X: "Oh, and we need an annual roadmap..."
Me: "Don't need one... just imagine 145 projects going very slowly, and 5 going very quickly...."
X: "And an allocation breakdown..."
Me: "55% of energy is going to context switching...."
X: "Can we just divide up the 45%?"
Me: "....."
(I write these stories amalgamated from many experiences over the years with the goal of letting people in the trenches know that you aren't going crazy.... it is crazy, a lot of time)
14-Landing the Case
X: "We need to adopt modern ways of doing product!!"
Me: "Why?"
X: "Because! We're running a feature factory!"
Me: "Hmmm. Plenty of feature factories print money. Some of your favorite products were built in a rather oppressive, top-down feature factory."
X: "Well, we could be doing so much better!"
Me: "I understand it feels like it would be more rewarding for you to work in that environment. Who else? Who is “we”?"
X: "Well, the company!"
Me: "Last I checked, your stock is doing decent. I'm guessing some people are doing really well $-wise. Looks like your CEO (checks) just got a huge raise."
X: "But that can't last. This will catch up to us."
Me: "Savvy investors will hedge against that, I'm sure. Companies can grow for a very long time based on inertia."
X: "You're so depressing. I thought you were a product person!"
Me: "Oh I am. The trick is that while you personally have a motivation to get better and do better, your company is filled with other humans with their own views and needs. 'Just because...' unfortunately isn't a great pitch."
X: "Hmmm. What's a good pitch?"
Me: "Where are poorly conceived features costing your company lots of money? Where are you spending a ton of $ to try to acquire customers and falling short? Why are customers churning? Where is there internal friction that saps time, $, and energy? Where is it taking 50 people to build something your competitors build with 5, in a 5th the time? Where is your support team getting overwhelmed with cases?"
X: "Hmm. I see."
Me: "Here's a good exercise. Look at some financials and metrics that get shared across the org. Explain how you could meaningfully shift the picture. What would change? Cost of acquisition? LTV? Cost to support customers? Time to onboard? Cases per customer? Marketing expenses? Discounts? Cost to replace people who leave the company?"
X: "Got it."
Me: "And also... you can do all that and still run into the fact that a company slowly fading into oblivion can still make people a ton of money, and that unfortunately your individual need to achieve your career goals may not overlap their needs. So don't invest too much emotional toil."
15-Designer Journey
X: "Designers need to become more business savvy!"
Designer: "OK. Here I go...."
⏳ 1y later
Designer: "I'm seeing some fundamental flaws in this business model"
X: "Get back to work. You're a product designer for chrissakes!"
⏳ 1y later
Designer: "I've rediscovered the craft of making useful things"
X: "You can't be a silo. Democratize the process!"
⏳ 1y later
Designer: "We're working as a team. Everyone is a designer!"
X: "What do you do again?"
⏳ 1y later
Designer-turned-PM: "OK screw it. I've become a product manager..."
X: "A real one, or a fake one?"
Designer-turned-PM: "Wait, what?"
⏳ 1y later
D-PM: "I think I'm getting the hang of it now..."
X: "Meet your new boss. Straight out of B-school AND two $ exits + plus 18 months in big tech! All in 5 years!"
⏳ 1y later
D-PM: "I'm a PRD-writing, high-agency machine. And I'm miserable. This isn't why I got involved in all this in the first place."
X: "Do I sense a complaint? That's not very proactive....the promo-cycle is...."
⏳ 1y later
…
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John - you’ve reminded me about everything I hate about corporate life and why I’ll probably never go back to it.
Wow, an email newsletter has never made me so depressed so quickly. Too real.