Bring Me Problems, Not Solutions
Why suggested solutions don’t work for product managers
Picture the scene.
A department head sends you an email which says:
Hi Rob,
We’ve got a problem in our Madrid office where our team are unable to mark their work as complete within the product. Can you arrange for a button to be added to page X that will allow the UK team to close the work for them?
Thanks
To some, this might appear to be a nice situation to be in, as someone has already done the hard work to figure out what needs to be done and all you need to do is process the request.
However, that’s not really how product management works.
Product Managers aren’t ‘request processors’.
Product Managers understand problems and find solutions that deliver value.
Does it really matter if the solution solves the problem?
Yes. Yes. Yes!
The problem that the department head is solving might not be the problem that you as the product manager actually need to solve.
The problem that the department head has is that his Madrid team can’t mark their work as complete, and that means he can’t see work being done by the team. His solution of getting the UK team to do it gets the work marked as completed and he can see the work being done.
However, the real problem to solve is how do we empower the Madrid team to complete their own work?
That’s a different problem which needs a different solution.
How do we know what the real problem to solve is?
The short answer is that we ask:
Question: Why can’t the Madrid team complete their own work?
Answer: They don’t have user accounts that allow them to do it.
Question: Why don’t they have user accounts that allow them to do it?
Answer: We’re waiting for the legal team to authorise their access to the product?
Question: Why does the legal team need…
