This is the February 2025 Pragmatic Manager Newsletter, from Johanna Rothman. The Unsubscribe link is at the bottom of this email.
Last month, I wrote about technical leadership micromanagement and the technical leadership overwhelm. (See One Secret to Free Yourself from the Overwhelm of Leadership Work for that post.) I heard from several product managers. Here's how one product manager, Paul, described his situation:
“I'm supposed to support three different teams as a product manager.
- I'm trying to multitask on these three different products. That's a losing proposition because I don't have the time to do everything for all three products.
- Part of my role is to decide on the product strategy for each of these products. But I'm so stuck on the tactical work, writing the stories, I don't have time to do so.
- I'm always writing the stories by myself, and I feel as if I don't have enough time in the day.
I'm overloaded and in the middle of the work, but it's not like your technical leadership example. What do I do?”
Paul is not alone. These product leadership issues are all too common to many organizations.
Too-Common Product Leadership Issues
Back in the 70s, 80s, and 90s, many senior managers assumed they would only need one product manager for a given product. It didn't matter how many feature sets a product needed. No, the product only needed one product manager.
Back then, many project and program managers shared some of what we now call the product owner role. As a project manager, I decided on the order of the feature sets. (Worse, back then, we often chose based on risk, not by value.)
Even as teams have moved to agile approaches, too many senior managers still believe that a given product needs only one product manager and too few product owners. That creates these problems:
- The product leader (manager or owner) is supposed to multitask between teams and products. (That's just like no product owner at all.)
- That means the product leader is overloaded and has insufficient time to consider both the strategic and tactical issues. However, we require different thinking time for both strategy and tactics.
This creates even more challenges:
- The team does not learn early enough about the product strategy. They cannot anticipate what the product leader needs.
- Worse, the team does not learn to write effective stories. (The team tends to write tasks.)
- All the flow metrics go in the wrong direction: Increased WIP, increased cycle time, and lower throughput.
- The product leader feels even more stress and strain, thinking they have to do it all.
We can stop the madness with collaboration.
How Product Leaders Can Collaborate
Just as I encourage all agile teams to collaborate, I've suggested (many times) that experts should never work alone. (See Throughput: Why Salary Costs Matter Less Than You Think They Do to see a value stream map that shows this problem.)
A product leader is also an expert.
While the product leader is responsible for the product work, there is no reason a product leader needs to work alone. Just as the rest of the team needs to collaborate on finishing stories, the team—with guidance from the product leader—can learn to write stories. (I offered an example workshop in Alternatives for Agile and Lean Roadmapping: Part 1, Think in Feature Sets.)
However, Paul has more options. I asked if his teams were all part of one larger product. (That's a program, where several teams collaborate to create one business objective.) He said they were.
In that case, Paul can use the idea of a product value team across a program. (See Product Roles, Part 2: The Product Value Team for more explanation.)
Maybe you can stop there. But most product leaders I see need more alternatives to the overwhelm.
Consider These Alternatives to Stop the Overwhelm
I also like to use these alternatives:
- Ask your team for help.
- Limit the number of stories you plan to only the number of stories a team can actually complete in one or two weeks.
- Talk to your manager about your overwhelm and what they recommend you do.
Too many of us think that we appear weak and vulnerable when we ask for help. However, because we can admit we can't do everything, we appear stronger to others. (See Leadership Tip #5: Learn How to Ask for Help for more details.) Start by asking for help with writing stories.
Then, if the team only has to write three, four, or five stories, everyone limits the WIP. What if the team needs to look ahead? Ask them the “how little” question: How little do you need as a look-ahead?
Now, to the difficult conversation part: with your manager.
Have a Management Conversation
I often see managers say, “Do more with less.” While that's a useless—and incorrect—platitude, the managers might not have any ideas about what to do. In that case, offer your manager these options:
- Explain, “I don't know how to do more with less. I can barely catch my breath between the next product crisis. I'm a terrific product leader, but I do not know how. I am always behind on either the strategy or the tactics. I need one of three things: fewer teams, help in the product owner role, or coaching.” (If you prefer a different set of three, that's fine.)
- Consider this, too: “I realize you want to start all these products. However, we don't have enough product leadership to do so. In effect, we have started this work without enough cross-functional skills to complete it when you want. Can we rethink the project or product portfolios?”
That might be enough for you to have a real conversation and solve the problem of your overwhelm.
Collaboration is the Secret
Collaboration is the “secret sauce” of agility. It's also the secret sauce to free yourself from almost every kind of overwhelm.
Effective agility requires collaboration at all levels:
- Inside the team, with the product leader.
- The product leader with the rest of the product value team or like-minded people across the organization.
- With management, to avoid starting too many products or projects the organization cannot finish.
Product leadership overwhelm is real. You can stop it.
Read More:
This newsletter touches on topics in these books:
- The Modern Management Made Easy books
- Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility
- Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver
- Agile and Lean Program Management: Scaling Collaboration Across the Organization
Yes, as soon as I finish Effective Public Speaking, I will start the product leadership book.
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© 2025 Johanna Rothman
Pragmatic Manager: Vol 22, #2, ISSN: 2164-1196