March 6 Best of Twitter – Manage Your Time, Own Your Projects, Communicate Openly
Trying out a new feature here this week – these are the best of the links I followed from Twitter, with suggested takeaways.
“Why are we doing this project? What are the assumptions that made it seem like a good idea before and are they still valid?” Too Many Projects Chasing Too Few People
Put it into action today: Look at the list of projects on your to-do list. There’s probably at least one that doesn’t make sense.
Make a proposal to your boss explaining briefly the reasons this became a priority, what has changed, and the opportunity cost if you continued. You might get overruled, but it’s good practice and repeated attempts can drive cultural change.
“The trick is that unlike traditional marketing you don’t talk TO your potential customers, instead you try to get them INVOLVED in a discussion with you.” How to Use Web 2.0 to be a Better Product Manager
Put it into action today: Search for your product, or competitor’s product, or your industry (whichever is most relevant) on Twitter. Read what people are saying and respond. Ask a question.
What happens: “You are constantly questioning your vendor’s motivation, and they are pushing back on every little change because it effects their bottom line.” How to Guarantee Software Project Failure
Put it into action today: Walk through the deployment process for your software or service. Identify the points where you are dependent on your customer. Maybe it’s waiting for them to give you information, install some code, make a decision. Ask yourself if there is any way to move that responsibility from them to you (even a hacky way may be an improvement.)
“The only way to actually get things done is to mitigate the urgent to work on the important.” How to Mitigate The Urgent to Work on the Important
Put it into action today: Stop reading this blog and go do something important. (No, really, please don’t. I like you, audience.)
Go through the requests people have made of you. If you can delegate it, do so. Reply to the rest asking: specifically what do you need? what problem/answer are you trying to solve? what timeframe do you need this by? (Most people make the mistake of replying to requests “right away” when the requester might’ve needed it “sometime before Q3″). Once you’ve cleared the stack, you’re ready to use the tricks in this article.
“The suggestion is that you implement one single company-wide rule. The rule is simple: every employee is 100% responsible for how they spend their time.” Employees should be Masters of Their Time
Put it into action today: If you find yourself telling someone how to do their job, stop. Tell them the problem that needs solving and let them propose a way to solve it. If someone tells you how to do your job, tell them “Am I correct that you’re trying to solve problem X? If so, let me propose a solution.”
“Negative feedback is valuable feedback; better to have it articulated in your own community where you can respond to it then have it only appear elsewhere on the Web.” The 7 Deadly Sins of Online Community Management
Put it into action today: Suck it up and read your product reviews. Be honest about things you know aren’t optimal and requests that you realistically are not going to provide anytime soon.
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Tags: customers, get it done, listening, problem-solving
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