Background

Since I found out about Gibson Biddle and his talks/workshops, I have become his fangirl lol. I think I first came to know him through his Medium articles - the one about product strategy. Then when I bought “Escape the build trap” by Melissa Perri, she also mentioned about Gibson. On one fine day in Justco, I happened to stumble this Product Tank video where Gib talked about Wicked Hard decisions. And seriously, I’m sold. I made notes to watch all of his (free) talks and read his (free) articles.

Recently, Gib opened his Substack where he opened to the floor (random people like me) to ask questions and he would answer one question every week (or day).

Of course, I didn’t waste no minute to ask my question and self-voted few times. I even put my name inside just to beat the crowd of all anonymous questions. Luckily, 60 people have voted so far and the question got into the top list. And yes, finally, he picked mine.

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So how to best work with other departments’ bosses

Original Gib’s answer is here: https://askgib.substack.com/p/dear-gib-as-a-pm-how-do-i-best-work

What I like about his answer, apart from the fact that it’s my question is

• Clear and simple framework
• Real life examples
• Simple English

In a nutshell, we have to understand the stakeholder’s intention by asking questions. Below are some tactics Gib suggested when it comes to discussing with stakeholders:

• Disagree without being disagreeable
• Provide your context
• Establish whose decision it is: Tightly alignment and loosely coupling
• Switch roles
• Debate, decide, and do

Also, depending on the stakes of the decision, we spend the time accordingly. If it’s low stake, focus on debate, decide, and do. If it’s high stake, all of the tactics should be considered and with the correct people in the room.

My reflection

If I have to reflect to the organisation I’m in, I think we need to improve on Establish whose decision it is. My read of the situation is that we want to satisfy everyone. Hence, a lot of debate is ongoing without a decision made in a timely manner. For some people, such time is worth it. I guess the perception of time is really different for different people here.

I also need to improve on providing my context with sharing the goals, the objectives and the relevant data points to the topic. Gib suggested to use following questions as a guide:

• What existing business or customer data exists?
• What qualitative data (focus groups, usability, survey)?
• What past AB test results drive their thinking?

Since I put my name in my question, he ended his answer with this:

I’m very thankful for his time and effort in answering my question, and of course to whoever voted for my question. Hope that I can find the my sweet spot in working with stakeholders in the future.