I've lived through this several times in my career - both changing teams within the same org and then changing orgs. I have taken multiple approaches to it - the "come in and change everything because its all bad" one was the worst for sure. Listening, finding where there's opportunity to get to know the individuals better, being reserved until you have some trust established - those types of things helped me a lot.
Oh I've been in a similar experience as well. By naively imposing a "better way of work", I damaged a relationship with a stakeholder since first week we met. Later, I realized that I was pushing so hard at the beginning because of my lack of experience in the field, so I started to care more about the person and understanding his biases.
At the end, it was just about testing different ways to stay aligned, learn from mistakes and iterate. But took a longer time nurturing this relationship of course.
True fact! Currently, big part of my time it's about guiding and mentoring this team for now while they learn and grow. I'd love to hear about your experience, Benedikt!
It's great your turn this (common) situation into an actionable guide or steps.
This situation of immature teams is super frustrating for new PMs. They buy the "CEO of product" bullshit and expect to be the center of the team. That doesn't happen. Ambiguity, uncertainty, lack of technical knowledge and politics are part of the job. As you propose, building alignment and communication are key. But it's hard and painful sometimes. That's why they got us, PMs. 😅👍
I've lived through this several times in my career - both changing teams within the same org and then changing orgs. I have taken multiple approaches to it - the "come in and change everything because its all bad" one was the worst for sure. Listening, finding where there's opportunity to get to know the individuals better, being reserved until you have some trust established - those types of things helped me a lot.
Oh I've been in a similar experience as well. By naively imposing a "better way of work", I damaged a relationship with a stakeholder since first week we met. Later, I realized that I was pushing so hard at the beginning because of my lack of experience in the field, so I started to care more about the person and understanding his biases.
At the end, it was just about testing different ways to stay aligned, learn from mistakes and iterate. But took a longer time nurturing this relationship of course.
Thanks for sharing this, Mike!
I like that you mention work maturity. In my experience, the PM job differs a lot for PMs of mature teams vs PMs of starting teams.
True fact! Currently, big part of my time it's about guiding and mentoring this team for now while they learn and grow. I'd love to hear about your experience, Benedikt!
It's great your turn this (common) situation into an actionable guide or steps.
This situation of immature teams is super frustrating for new PMs. They buy the "CEO of product" bullshit and expect to be the center of the team. That doesn't happen. Ambiguity, uncertainty, lack of technical knowledge and politics are part of the job. As you propose, building alignment and communication are key. But it's hard and painful sometimes. That's why they got us, PMs. 😅👍
Exactly, many things going on at the same time! But hey don't forget your user stories in time, right? 🤣
Thanks for sharing Antonio!