PRODUCTHEAD is a regular newsletter of product management goodness,
curated by Jock Busuttil.
meeting in the product #
tl;dr
Ask “why” to understand the other side’s position and interest
All negotiations involve both rational and emotional elements
Whatever decision you make as a product manager will disappoint some people
Teams benefit from a shared understanding of the trade-offs of decisions
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hello
A lawyer friend of mine spends the majority of her time attempting to settle cases before they reach a court of law. Unlike the movies and TV shows, and despite the rhetorical skills of the legal counsel, a court case rarely results in a clear victory for either party. In many cases, the only “winners” are the lawyers on each side, who will require payment regardless of who wins.
Hence, settling a case early before it goes to court might mean paying a sum of money now, but ultimately would work out cheaper than the much larger legal expense of a full-blown court case, even if you were to “win” it.
Settling a court case is an exercise in negotiation. Each side evaluates the evidence, the strength of their own arguments and those of the other side. They each figure out what would be their and their opponent’s probable best-case and worst-case outcomes, were the dispute to go to court. They take into consideration the legal fees each side would have to incur. And after all that, they make a financial offer to the other side to stop before it gets really expensive for everyone.
Negotiated settlements can be straightforward when both sides have a solid understanding of the context and a realistic expectation of the likely outcomes. In these situations, it simply becomes a process of finding the right sum of money that makes both sides feel that they have “won”. Where it becomes complicated is when emotion clouds judgement, and it becomes more about people “having their day in court”, where they want to be seen to have “won” and the other side to “lose”.
As product managers, we’re (hopefully) rarely involved in litigation. A phrase you’ll often hear describes product managers as having “influence without authority”. We can’t make things happen by stamping our feet and demanding them. In practice, this means we are perpetually negotiating:
with our team to ensure we’re achieving a good balance of building the right thing and building the thing right;
with our stakeholders to balance their needs, the organisation’s needs and the users’ needs;
with our managers to balance demands on our time and expectations of performance;
and so the list goes on.
Despite how much of our time is spent negotiating with people, we’re almost never given any formal training in how to negotiate effectively. It ends up being yet another of those so-called “soft” skills that we’re somehow expected to absorb as if by professional osmosis.
There are some useful techniques and principles you can apply to negotiation. They won’t give you the ability to “win” every negotiation outright, but they’ll help you to reach a satisfactory win-win scenario for both parties more of the time. After all, unlike a court case, you generally have to keep working with the people with whom you’re continually negotiating.
Some of the articles I’ve included for you this week refer to Getting to Yes by Roger Fisher and William Ury, so that’s a good starting point for you as any. I’ve also included a couple of talks from Lucy Spence and John Cutler who provide advice for product people having to make trade-offs as part of their daily negotiations.
Speak to you soon,
Jock
what to think about this week
Negotiation in product management: the pursuit of compromise
When I was a student, I took part in a negotiation exercise. We were given imaginary countries and had to negotiate our rights to the surrounding sea. The whole exercise quickly descended down into what the lecturer politely described as a study in realpolitik.
Unsurprisingly, empathy is involved
[Chris Bell / Mind The Product]
Negotiations and resolving conflicts: an overview
Every desire that demands satisfaction and every need to be met is at least potentially an occasion for negotiation; whenever people exchange ideas with the intention of changing relationships, whenever they confer for agreement, they are negotiating
In a successful negotiation, everyone wins
[Prof. E. Wertheim / College of Business Administration, Northeastern University]
Trade-offs: tips for deals with the devil
Product development requires trade-offs, but just like a deal with the devil, the devil is in the details of how you make those trade-offs. And your choices can be devilishly hard. This demonic themed talk looks at various techniques for easing the burden of the bargains you make.
[VIDEO] A DEVILISH framework :-)
[Lucy Spence / UX Brighton]
Towards meaningful (and actionable) alignment
Building shared understanding is hard work. Ironically, it is our most passionate team members that complicate the challenge. They crave coherence, a powerful Why, and a flexible environment for solutioning. How do we get everyone on the “same page” without glossing over the nuance, and stifling innovation?
[VIDEO] A practical exercise to run with your team at 00:24:40 onwards
[John Cutler / Front]
Update: due to link rot, the video is no longer online, but you can see an example of the same exercise here: “John Cutler explains how you can answer tough questions with your product story“
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Hi Jock,
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[I Manage Products]
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PRODUCTHEAD is a newsletter for product people of all varieties, and is lovingly crafted from a bouquet of daffodils.