How to Establish Boundaries
And take on less work
It can be scary being in Product Management. There’s a lot of things thrown your way, and constant questions to be answered. If it’s not your engineering team coming at you with questions on what and how to build, which is really their responsibility, it’s a leader coming at you asking for when you’ll be done, instead of just giving you a deadline and marching you toward that date come hell or high-water. So, we here at Dignified Product have a helpful tip for fledgling Product Managers:
*cue infomercial track*
Taking a revolutionary approach from mental health professionals around the globe, Product Managers are enforcing boundaries to safeguard themselves and limit what they are responsible for. Here’s some tips:
Separate yourself from everyone. You’re a product person, not an engineer or a designer or a leader or a follower. Whether you’re a he, she, they, non-binary, you are your own person, and shouldn’t get tangled in the mess of others, so be sure to only attend meetings that you set up, and disassociate from the burdensome responsibility of teamwork, and start acting as a solo practitioner of the art.
Logical separation is a start, but sometimes, like all good boundaries, they need to be physical. Try putting your engineers in a separate room, or even a separate office. Make it difficult for them to invade your space by putting up a healthy distance between you and them. After-all, the best boundary is one that cannot be physically crossed. (bonus points if you put an entire ocean between you and separate yourself by time, as it will help with tip 1)
And that’s it.
The more boundaries you put around you, and insulate yourself from others, the better off you’ll be at limiting your exposure to responsibility, putting more expectations on your team. You’ll be able to metaphorically throw things over that physical wall and expect your team to deliver. If things don’t go well, check out our: “How to Delegate and Blame Others for Failure” post.
Thanks,
(product) Management
