Success Activities vs. Distracting Activities
Success Activities vs. Distracting Activities
Not all activites are directed towards product success.
As software product managers, everything we do falls into two crucial categories: Success Activities and Distracting Activities. Distinguishing between the two is paramount to maximizing value creation and ensuring efficient time management.
Success Activities: Driving Value Creation
Success Activities directly contribute to value creation for users/customers. Engaging in these tasks enhances the user experience and product value. Examples include strategic planning, writing user stories, conducting discovery sessions, overseeing development, and working on UX design. Even activities like recruiting contribute to future success by building a robust team.
Distracting Activities: Navigating Distractions
Supporting activities, while sometimes necessary, can be considered distractions. These include tasks such as reporting, financial planning, time tracking, and discussions that lack strategic relevance. Managing these activities is critical to maintaining focus on value-driven tasks.
Note that there as distracting activities that are necessary (like financial planning), but they do not contribute to value creation.
Strategies for Success
Time allocation: Determine the percentage of time spent on success activities and strive to increase it consistently.
Calendar reviews: Regularly review your calendar to identify and correct potential time misallocations.
Evaluate each task: Regularly evaluate whether each calendar item is aligned with success activities or falls under distracting activities.
Optimize meetings: Streamline meetings and activities for Supporting Activities by opting for less frequent engagement, such as monthly instead of weekly.
Decline unnecessary requests: Politely decline requests for distracting activities, and when unavoidable, negotiate aspects such as duration, scope, or cadence.
Procrastinate with purpose: Intentionally procrastinate on distracting activities in favor of prioritizing success activities.
By implementing these strategies, software product managers can increase their focus on success activities, ultimately leading to more impactful and valuable product development.
What I read
This is separate section of this newsletter. I will list some of the best articles I 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 >800) at https://www.digital-product-management.com. These are today’s picks:
How to present to your CEO: Be prepared to move fast, encourage them to interrupt you, and more.
Mastering Product Discovery: Primarily for Quantitative Discovery.
Control incentivices to move slower: Teams will get cautious and move slower when under control.