How I Achieve Product Outcomes Faster by Keeping My Options Open

4 tactics to embrace optionality instead of rigid plans.

Does rigidity keep your product from reaching its potential?

Your option to change makes or breaks your product.

Yet, many in the software product space find they run low on steer-ability.

• They must adhere to a standard playbook.
• They must follow a detailed plan.
• They must deliver a rigid scope.
• They must do as told.
  

A better way exists—one that gives you optionality.

Options allow maneuverability, adaptability, and resiliency.

Product work is complex and uncertain. It’s like a thick fog is in front of us. Every step we take makes the path before us clearer.

Having the option to pivot as the fog clears is our secret weapon.

But we often show up in product by following a narrow tunnel through the fog, locked into rigidity.

Let’s explore why we end up in this predicament, and how I use optionality to tame product chaos.

Why do we fall into the trap of rigidity instead of embracing the flexibility of options?

I used to fall prey to the lure of false control.

It still beckons me today like it does many others.

The corporate world chases control as if it will starve without it. Your ability to climb the corporate ladder rests on your prowess at this skill.

• The ability to direct people.
• The ability to forecast demand.
• The ability to standardize operations.
• The ability to predict when you will get done.
  

In my experience, this is all a fiction that hides the true uncontrollable nature of product work.

Nobody wants to admit, “I don’t know,” in the corporate world.

It’s an immediate career-destroying move.

So, in turn, many toil to paint grand portraits of perfect knowledge. These appear on the surface to be works of art. But they’re actually mirages, painting a false sense of control with their surface beauty. This is especially true in product work.

All this theater is a colossal waste.

We pursue structure, order, and procedure, even when it’s not possible.

A well-laid plan calms us.

So, we conduct a peaceful march to our destination following our precise plan. We tell others (and ourselves) that we will reach our goal fast by trodding this straight path. After all, the shortest distance between two points is a straight line, right? Everything seems to be in its right place, in the right order.

But our manufactured control and sense of order is an illusion.

We make the plan. We follow the plan.

But what we actually do is fool ourselves and each other.

The beauty of our masterpiece is only surface deep. The real chaos lies hidden right beneath the surface. Nobody can predict the future in product work. Yet, we all try to every day.

And once we reach the end of our grand plan, we aren’t where we intended to be. Our perfect plan reveals its ugly reality. Our false disguise of control vanishes. Now, that’s what I call a career-limiting move.

We’re lost, out of money, out of time, out of energy.

And we’re out of options.

This sucks. Time to pivot.

How I Use Optionality to Tame the Chaos of Product Work (4 Tactics).

Truth: you can’t guess the path to a great product beforehand.

But what you can do is avoid early rigidity. You want to be able to pivot in the face of new information. This requires you to be light on your feet.

The more effort you put into guessing before you take a step, the harder the turn. Why? Because you don’t want all that upfront effort to go to waste. You hold on tight to this heavy weight even as it pulls you under.

You sink under the sunk cost of your massive, upfront aiming.

What you need is the ability to let go of this weight, so you can keep swimming to shore.

But I’ve seen many managers and teams choose to sink instead by throwing more money and effort at a bad plan. They have too much invested in the doomed ship, and they opt to go down with it.

But we don’t have to go down with the ship.

I too struggle with upfront prediction and the desire for control.

To battle this instinct, I’ve found 4 key tactics to be useful. These help me stay adaptable. And I’m making them available to you, so you can, too.

They aren’t difficult. You can take these tactics and put them to use in your context today. You’ll have to practice and rewire old habits. But they give you immediate benefit by helping you embrace change.

Ready? Let’s dive in.

Tactic 1. Admit you can’t predict the right path before you start.

The shortest path to your desired product outcome isn’t straight.

It’s crooked.

It goes around.

It goes in circles.

It goes backward.

It goes the long way.

Be ready for this. Admit you don’t know the right way before starting. Nobody has a crystal ball in product work. And anyone who claims they do is an amateur.

Instead, become poised for change.

Plan for the next step, and don’t get too far ahead of yourself.

Each step you take informs the next.

This is how you embrace learning to your advantage.

But many managers struggle with this. They view the winding path as wasteful.

Don’t fall into this trap. If we plan light, take small steps, and learn after each one, we are on the shortest and cheapest path. But planning big, taking big steps, and ignoring learning is the longest, most costly path. Remember that.

I remember it because of a failed product launch early in my career.

My team and I tried to get it right on the first try. We planned and designed for six months, built for a year, and released our precious baby into the wild. Do you know what happened? Crickets. Nobody cared. It was a flop. And our team lost its funding and disbanded.

We followed our grand path and ended up lost and alone in the forest.

Don’t make the same mistake I did. I’m sure you’ve seen plenty of perfect plans launch products that flop. Don’t be one of them.

Embrace a winding route instead.

But admitting you don’t know goes further than planning. And this takes us to tactic 2.

Tactic 2. Don’t get tied to your grand ideas.

Throw your grand ideas to the curb.

Great products rarely result by feeding an insatiable ego.

I’ve made the grave mistake of thinking I know best.

Many teams and stakeholders I’ve worked with have done the same. I meet more teams today than ever who have never met their user. They build and build to an audience of no one. And when the money runs out, they have nothing but a paperweight product that is dead on arrival.

Building a product without your user is more foolish than gambling; you have worse odds.

But you know what does work? Knowing your users.

I’m not talking about creating a persona or an empathy map. This is a proxy, not a person. You have to actually know them. Talk to them. Understand them.

I am reminded of that line from Game of Thrones, “You know nothing, Jon Snow.” But instead of Jon Snow, we can put our names there.

But you know who does know? Your users.

Put users at the center, not your ego.

Now that your ego is in check, you need to stop designing to perfection.

Tactic 3. Don’t over-design.

A grand, upfront design assumes perfect knowledge you don’t have.

You are at the point of highest ignorance before you start.

Stop designing as if you know the solution. You don’t.

I remember spending months designing a solution with some of the smartest minds I had ever met. But we had never met our users. We thought we could build it, and they would come. We were wrong.

While knowing your users is key, they don’t know what they need either.

Pictures and diagrams are lifeless and don’t give users the reality of a solution. Users have to see and use something real. Getting to the right solution is a process of trial and error, not all-in, giant bets.

Instead of gambling, you should dance.

The best ideas come as you experiment, not by thinking harder.

So, stop thinking so much, and start trying things out.

You should not spend months toiling to get it perfect before releasing it into the wild. Instead, start modest, with a simple, inexpensive version, and put it out. Get feedback. Tweak it, throw it out, or evolve it. Stop when your users love it and when it solves their needs.

Happy users won’t come by luck. Emerge a design with them that works for them.

One step forward, two steps back is the product dance we must all perform. Going back is not a setback; it’s a product dance move. And it requires us to be light on our feet, not heavy with too much forward momentum.

We must dance, not charge, to the product outcomes we desire.

Tactic 4. Don’t lock in.

Contracts lock you down and deter learning.

• Baselines
• Deadlines
• Mandates
• Playbooks
• Specifications
• Detailed plans
• Yearly budgets
• Scope matrices
• Long-term plans
• Detailed backlogs
  

These are but a few of the ways we use contractual thinking. We use these to gain some sense of control in the product world.

Again, we are trying to control the uncontrollable. And in turn, this rigidity becomes a disadvantage. We stumble and fall when change arrives instead of staying low and nimble like a running back.

In product work, new information flies at you from all directions. We must be ready for it.

Commit less, so you can stay light on your feet.

Commitments create assumptions that you know, even when you don’t.

In the corporate world, we hear the word commitment, and we compare it to a blood oath. We don’t view it as a dedication to our cause and trying our best. We see it as a rock-solid commitment. And if we don’t meet it, many view us as lazy or not disciplined.

So, my solution to this: commit less to rigid solutions.

Commit to learning instead.

Your success depends on your ability to put fresh evidence to use and change fast. The way I do this is by keeping my options open and not freezing scope or any other forward-looking plan. Options allow me and my product teams to be quick, graceful, and nimble. We can change direction at any moment with ease.

It’s how I outmaneuver the defensive line and score.

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Thinking harder, contrary to its popularity, makes product harder.

When you think your way to outcomes, you lock in early and reduce optionality.

1. Plan fixation leads you where you don’t need to be.
2. You know nothing if you don’t know your users and their needs.
3. A perfect feature to you, with no user need for it, is perfectly useless.
4. Committing to the unknowable is committing to fail with no option to recover.
   

So, instead, be nimble and keep your options open. Don’t carry the weight of deciding too early before learning arrives. Invite early learning and adaptation instead.

1. Plan light so you can adapt with quick, easy grace.
2. Throw out your ego, and know your user to know what you must do.
3. Emerge solutions from simple to better, and stop at enough (not perfect).
4. Commit to learning to discover the winding path to your desired outcomes.
   

Your best solutions need early learning and continuous change.

Deal with the unknown by committing to learning. This is table stakes for product work.

Learning is like pushing a heavy object up and over a hill to reach your outcome. When you’re on the upslope, you’re working against gravity (the unknown). And when you’re over the top (learning in hand), you’re on the downslope. The load is lighter, and you can carry your knowledge downhill to reach your goal. When you know what you need to do, the journey is easier.

This is why you must act, not think, your way to a great product outcome.

I favor action today over endless planning. It allows me and my teams to turn the tables to succeed more often than we fail in product work. That’s saying a lot given the neglected state of most product outcomes.

You only learn through action and the result of that action.

So, stop thinking so much. Start acting. Learn fast and often. Be nimble.

Climbing your product mountain is easier when you have options. Don’t wait until you get backed into a corner without any. Apply these tactics to embrace change.

Good luck out there.

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