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Virtually every product manager or product owner I worked with had this problem. There were multiple goals and all of them were "euqally important". I started

Virtually every product manager or product owner I worked with had this problem. There were multiple goals and all of them were "euqally important". I started to explain that it's about risk management - the things we pick up first have higher chance to be completed on time, so I asked which ones would cause more trouble if they were delayed. Sometimes that helped, sometimes it didn't. So these days what I say when I can't get clear priorities is this: if everything is equally important, then I'll choose what my team works on first, and I'll do it according to my criteria, which is what tasks do we find most interesting. Almost always the response then is "ok, wait, let me think and by tomorrow I'll send you the list ordered by priority".

Hokusai 5y ago
Then they are not doing their job. I have worked with very good product owners and priority is always clear for the team . Also they are able to negotiate time and scope. Sometimes it makes sense to deliver less features to meet deadlines, others it is better to deliver later the full product. Everything is important and for tomorrow just shows that management/product are not doing their job. I have seen that in one owner companies, it maybe the top that does not allow for the company too work properly, it does not needs to be necessarily any product owner fault.
- arnvald 5y ago
  > it does not needs to be necessarily any product owner fault I totally agree! I think they're often in difficult situation, I've seen product managers with different priorities coming from various stakeholders. It's often a complicated situation.
  - dcow 5y ago
    I’ve seen it too but isn’t that still their job? If they just transcribe an “everything is urgent” message from the top down to the field, why is the company paying them? Can’t the same be done in an email or all hands? Feels like they’re just masking poor leadership team at that point.
    - haswell 5y ago
      Especially in larger orgs, there tends to be an ebb and flow regarding “top down” priorities. I might get a few releases to have the team focus on my priorities (as collected from various stakeholders), and then that may be followed by a release or two where some large top down initiative has to be absorbed by all teams, and my function as a PM is temporarily reduced. This is usually how I get enough focus time to do research, planning, and prioritization for future releases. This is just one perspective, but getting back to your question about “isn’t this still their job?”, the answer is “yes”, but at least in my case, I’m now doing that job for release N+2 if the whole company is currently focusing on mandates for N and N+1.
      - dcow 5y ago
        Having been an engineer subject to the ebb and flow you speak of, it really felt like the company had no direction. Just when you found the time to finally focus on an important and inspiring piece of the product some initiative would appear and kill all the momentum. If felt like we could never actually develop the product, just ship MVPs and then chase the next shiny thing. Your insight is interesting. While I mostly considered it leadership’s failure to provide focus, you could definitely observe the difference between areas of the company that had strong product leaders who could stand up to frivolous executives, and those that just parroted the next initiative without any real ability to prioritize and develop product.
        haswell 5y ago
        It’s a behavior that makes staying there…difficult, and is one of the bigger reasons I’ve considered leaving. To be fair, some of the mandates make sense. As a product grows and expands into new markets, and let’s just say that new market is a heavily regulated industry, and let’s say those regulations have major implications to the product, it takes a C-level mandate to get all groups on the same page. While I understand it, it also puts product managers like myself in a difficult position. For now, I use it to structure my work between releases. But eventually it’s gonna raise my frustration at not meeting my existing customer’s needs to a level that I’ll need to work elsewhere.
aidenn0 5y ago
That's kind of crazy because nearly the only information I (as an engineer) want from a PM is priorities. There was a project I was on that lacked a PM; I was assigned 3 different tasks by different stakeholders. There was zero way these tasks could all get done by the deadline. I told them that and asked for the engineering manager to sort out priorities, but he lacked the clout to do so. I sent out an e-mail with the items listed in a random order and said "unless someone tells me differently, this is the order I'm doing them in." I got 2/3 done by the deadline, and when I was asked why the 3rd one wasn't done, showed the e-mail chain (which of course nobody replied to). Less than a week later we got a PM and the project was basically sunshine and rainbows after that.

Hokusai 5y ago

Then they are not doing their job. I have worked with very good product owners and priority is always clear for the team . Also they are able to negotiate time and scope. Sometimes it makes sense to deliver less features to meet deadlines, others it is better to deliver later the full product. Everything is important and for tomorrow just shows that management/product are not doing their job. I have seen that in one owner companies, it maybe the top that does not allow for the company too work properly, it does not needs to be necessarily any product owner fault.

arnvald 5y ago
> it does not needs to be necessarily any product owner fault I totally agree! I think they're often in difficult situation, I've seen product managers with different priorities coming from various stakeholders. It's often a complicated situation.
- dcow 5y ago
  I’ve seen it too but isn’t that still their job? If they just transcribe an “everything is urgent” message from the top down to the field, why is the company paying them? Can’t the same be done in an email or all hands? Feels like they’re just masking poor leadership team at that point.
  - haswell 5y ago
    Especially in larger orgs, there tends to be an ebb and flow regarding “top down” priorities. I might get a few releases to have the team focus on my priorities (as collected from various stakeholders), and then that may be followed by a release or two where some large top down initiative has to be absorbed by all teams, and my function as a PM is temporarily reduced. This is usually how I get enough focus time to do research, planning, and prioritization for future releases. This is just one perspective, but getting back to your question about “isn’t this still their job?”, the answer is “yes”, but at least in my case, I’m now doing that job for release N+2 if the whole company is currently focusing on mandates for N and N+1.
    - dcow 5y ago
      Having been an engineer subject to the ebb and flow you speak of, it really felt like the company had no direction. Just when you found the time to finally focus on an important and inspiring piece of the product some initiative would appear and kill all the momentum. If felt like we could never actually develop the product, just ship MVPs and then chase the next shiny thing. Your insight is interesting. While I mostly considered it leadership’s failure to provide focus, you could definitely observe the difference between areas of the company that had strong product leaders who could stand up to frivolous executives, and those that just parroted the next initiative without any real ability to prioritize and develop product.
      - haswell 5y ago
        It’s a behavior that makes staying there…difficult, and is one of the bigger reasons I’ve considered leaving. To be fair, some of the mandates make sense. As a product grows and expands into new markets, and let’s just say that new market is a heavily regulated industry, and let’s say those regulations have major implications to the product, it takes a C-level mandate to get all groups on the same page. While I understand it, it also puts product managers like myself in a difficult position. For now, I use it to structure my work between releases. But eventually it’s gonna raise my frustration at not meeting my existing customer’s needs to a level that I’ll need to work elsewhere.

aidenn0 5y ago

That's kind of crazy because nearly the only information I (as an engineer) want from a PM is priorities. There was a project I was on that lacked a PM; I was assigned 3 different tasks by different stakeholders. There was zero way these tasks could all get done by the deadline. I told them that and asked for the engineering manager to sort out priorities, but he lacked the clout to do so. I sent out an e-mail with the items listed in a random order and said "unless someone tells me differently, this is the order I'm doing them in." I got 2/3 done by the deadline, and when I was asked why the 3rd one wasn't done, showed the e-mail chain (which of course nobody replied to). Less than a week later we got a PM and the project was basically sunshine and rainbows after that.