Socialization & Alignment
A forthcoming book & course
I often quip that my primary tasks in a Product Management role are "socialization and alignment". This is both ridiculous and deeply true! Although I have a wealth of skills and manage teams full of people equipped to deliver UX strategy, product definition, interaction design, user research, concept validation, content strategy, requirements, project management, development oversight, quality assurance...none of those activities matter if I am not doing a good job at socialization and alignment across the organization.
In this initial post, I’m taking a targeted product management lens. However, these are valuable skills to recognize and improve for any professional who works in groups and organizations, especially if you’re ever defining or creating new things.
Socialization involves introducing something and growing a shared understanding of key elements of the work. It might involve disseminating and establishing our team's knowledge of these kinds of matters:
These are our customers
This is the most important problem we need to solve for our business
Here's what we're learning from our customers in market
These are the most important needs we need to serve for our target users
This is the best solution candidate we can make and test next
These are the market opportunities that we're likely pursuing next, and why
Alignment involves keeping everybody moving towards shared, meaningful goals during the course of an effort. It might be achieved by defining and broadcasting things like:
Here’s the product vision (our north star)
This is why we're pursuing this opportunity in the market right now (and not these other pressing things)
Here are Product's metrics/OKRs within our current situation
Here's what other organizational leaders can do to clarify, define, and support our priorities
Here's what we're learning from our users during experiments
This is our progress to date, and challenges we’re facing
How does this viewpoint resonate with you? Please comment with your questions, thoughts, insights, war stories, or whatever comes to mind!
Both insightful and relatable to anyone working in collaborative settings within an organization, not just limited to product management. I particularly appreciate how the you highlight the need for not only internal alignment but also external socialization with customers and users.
LI could not be farther from your experience...I think. I am older, I was never a leader except in the classroom (which I regarded as a collaborative space), and I don't get 100% of the acronyms, but...I always benefit from folks who, at first, seem far from my experience. What I find quite often is that we are speaking the same message but in different lingo. I am trying to build a course for folks who want to imagine their own futures. I look forward to your eyes and ears picking up different signals from the future.