Ask any of the PMs who have worked with me, they will say that this is my favourite statement. I ask this statement at least once a day to them.
I was talking about this with one of the PMs who works with me, and I thought I would share some of the conversation highlights here.
- Shipping is the most important outcome that any PM needs to aspire towards, at any given time. The more you ship, the better you are.
- The primary reason for existence for a PM (in my humble opinion) is to ship. Sure, programmers code. Designers make the product beautiful and usable. Business folks give their requirements. Marketing folks get out the word. Customer support teams are on standby. But what is the use of all of this, if you do not ship. The PM is the glue that enables all of this to come together and ‘happen’.
- Example of ‘shipping’ being considered a real (and an important) thing — the famous ship-it awards in Microsoft. Every stakeholder who was part of a release used to get a Ship-it award (a tiny trophy kind of thingie). MS folks proudly display these ship-it awards on their desks.
- A lot of PMs that I know (including yours truly) come into this field from Engineering, Marketing, and various other fields. In most cases, we have boarded this ship, as a leap of faith. As a matter of fact, the best PMs are the ones who learnt on the go. It is incredibly hard to ‘explain’ to someone, or to ‘teach’ someone about ‘PM-ship’ (no puns intended). In these cases, the only way to ward off self-doubt (which is bound to happen) whether you did the right thing — is to ship. You keep shipping. And the spiral is always upward.
- Shipping creates tangible outcomes. And it reinforces.
- Ship incrementally. If this is not an option, get your devs to at least commit incrementally.
- Lastly, you are known by what you ship.
The original conversation was a very free-wheeling conversation during our 1-1. And so, was this recollection of thoughts. The above is in no particular order.
(Cover image source)