Communication is Work

Meetings, video calls and emails are not a distraction.

In the fast-paced world of product management and software engineering, many of us complain that meetings slow us down. We often see them as roadblocks to getting important work done, like writing user stories, refining backlogs, or, in the case of developers, good old coding.

Let's take a step back and rethink this. Communication isn't a distraction; it's a big part of what we do. Product managers use it to bring teams together, share information, and gain useful insights. For software engineers, conversations help solve coding challenges through collaboration.

Meetings are “work”

Meetings, whether in person or online, are opportunities to collaborate. They're not interruptions; they're opportunities to align on goals and make sure everyone is on the same page.

Seeing these exchanges as part of our work is a shift in thinking. Instead of seeing meetings as annoying interruptions of our work, let's see them as places where products get better, plans get sharper, and teams get more connected. It's about making our communication smart, fast, and meaningful so we can move our work forward.

Meetings are not the answer to everything, and there are many benefits to working asynchronously. We need to choose the right way to communicate, and meetings are one way of many, depending on the situation.

Good communication is not a problem; it's the heartbeat of successful product management and software engineering.

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What I read

This is a separate section of this newsletter. I will list some of the best articles I have read on the Internet. They may or may not be related to the topic of this article. I will keep a list of the best articles (currently >700) at https://www.digital-product-management.com. These are today’s picks:

Time Savings is not your value prop: You need to connect your value prop to the customer’s actual priorities and hard ROI business outcomes.

Unfix: A toolbox for versatile organization design. Similar to Team Topologies.

Reporting to Peter Principle: You will rise to a point where you will experience internal conflict with the way that your manager does their job. This is an invention of your own mind rather than them actually doing a bad job.