How to do product remotely
When it comes to remote working, you don't immediately think of product people as being one of the core roles for this, and as a Remote Work Report run by FYI showed, product has a lower percentage of remote workers than almost every other category of role within a company, CEOs, engineering, marketing, and sales all have more people working remotely than product. Why is this the case, and how can you buck the trend?
Why don't you get many remote product managers?
Firstly, the role of a product manager is highly cross-functional, in that they communicate regularly with many aspects of the business. From finance to customer success, marketing to development, there are always conversations on the go and often no regular forums for this to happen. It's a visit to a desk during the day, or an ad hoc meeting to run through how a new requirement should work, rather than a daily stand-up at 9 am. It's not quite the same as making a Slack call to someone you don't even know is available to have a chat at the moment.
Secondly, PMs are involved in quite a bit of creative work, finding solutions to problems, and as any product manager will tell you that the solutions mostly don't come from them, but they help others to get the creativity flowing. We ask questions and respond to the energy of a stakeholder. We help visualise problems and solutions, which allows others to contribute and drive things forward. It's not quite as easy when you're all formally sat at a desk having a Zoom meeting.
What can you do well as a remote PM?
There are a range of tasks that quite easily suit a remote working situation, from one-to-one interviews to user story writing or roadmap planning, they all allow for the PM to do what they do whilst not in the same room as others within the business. Data analysis, user surveys, strategic planning, and competitor research, all can be done from anywhere, so make sure you find the time to schedule these in, where in the past you might not have been able to.
Sharing information is another key task of the PM, whether it's roadmaps or product features, and all of this can be done from the comfort of your dining table. It could be an online presentation, or you could turn that into a video or webinar, it's all about getting the message across so find the most effective way that your audience will be able to consume the information you want to share.
Being available is another key thing for the PM to focus on, as we're often the person people turn to with their questions. If you're remote, and not available, then who will these people go to with their questions? Someone else, who might not have all the information to hand? No one else, so they make the answer up for themselves? Being online is not hard for the PM to do, and if you're away on a comfort break or for lunch, giving clear status updates means everyone knows when you're going to be back.
Of course, all of the regular ceremonies within software delivery can be facilitated with remote teams. From daily stand-ups to backlog refinement and sprint reviews, with a video call and screen sharing, the structured nature of these ceremonies means that you can easily fulfil your product management role for the team, and it doesn't matter if you're on a beach in Bali or in the basement in Baltimore.
How do you create some of the missing opportunities?
The first place to start is to actually think about what the real value is delivered by the things that you're missing out on and then see if you can try and get even a small percentage of that value whilst being remote.
For brainstorming sessions, you're missing being able to all be together, viewing the idea forming on a board together, so make sure you're using a shared document type tool so that multiple people can contribute. Google Docs allows simultaneous editing by multiple people. The likes of Web Whiteboard, Explain Everything, or Miro are online whiteboards designed to facilitate collaboration, which accompanied by video chat from the likes of Slack, Zoom, Teams, or Google Hangouts will allow you to share ideas and work through shared solutions.
For those more one-to-one conversations, where you get the lowdown on upcoming work or the real reasons why a certain requirement is being asked for, then get them booked into people's calendars and make sure you've got your camera on. And make sure you don't let people hide behind the audio-only option, as you want to see people, their reactions, and the way they talk, because there's a lot of value in seeing how someone talks about a subject, compared to just the words that they say.
How do you recreate some of the general in-office benefits when remote?
Just because we miss out on some of the benefits of office life, doesn't mean we can't try and get some of the value that is offered from being in the same location.
There's no unwritten rule that says if you're wearing headphones don't interrupt me - as people can't see you're deep in thought - so make sure you use your online statuses in whatever communication tool you're using. Don't be afraid to utilise the Do Not Disturb settings when you need to concentrate. People won't think you are shirking.
There's no fortuitous bumping into people in the office kitchen - if your work colleagues were in your kitchen you've got problems! - so try and make some happy accidents happen. Message a different member of the team each day for no other reason than to just say hi and see how they're doing. Especially in the current climate, where in some countries people are stuck inside all alone, unable to venture into the street and could do with a bit of unplanned social contact. Kory Kredit, manager of product design & product experience at Keap, says you should “Overcommunicate. Being remote you miss out on the hallway conversations so it’s really important to stay as connected as possible to the information that’s being shared and the culture of the team.”
There's no time for a personal chat - Popping out to the sandwich shop for lunch, or waiting by the lifts, provided opportunities to escape work and talk about general life, which won't always be the case when you're working remotely, except with your closest work colleagues, so try and provide freedom for this to happen. At InVision, Anthony Maggio, Director Of Product said they needed to develop “a more intentional approach around work relationships. Create a strategy and form habits that allow for teams to connect on a personal level." In fact, they went as far as starting many of their meetings "with dedicated times to talk about our lives outside of work.”
There's no office radio playing - where you all get to moan at the same terrible song coming on - so create office playlists that people can all listen to and contribute to. If you want to mix it up then why not theme them (working at home related songs, being happy songs, teamwork or success songs).
There are definitely opportunities for Product Managers to keep being a key cog in the machinery even when they're remote, but you just need to ensure that you do what you need to do and manufacture some of the chance meetings and creative environments in which you usually find yourself.