The best PMs out there are not perfectionist, and we're here to tell you why. Welcome back to Lessons in Product Management. I'm your host, Jon Fontenot, and this episode is all about perfectionism and why you should avoid it.
at all costs perfectionists tend to be like artists if you have seen on movies or ever been around an artist my daughter is definitely a creative individual and an artist and she never lets me see her paintings or her pictures until they're done they have to be perfect they have to be exactly what you envisioned in your mind
Or it's not good enough to show off. And I think there's product managers out there that are very much like this. And it's not limited to the product management profession. This happens across many domains. This is more of a... a personality trait, a character trait of individuals that cuts across different disciplines and functions, which is fine. I think the desire for excellence is admirable. should be expected. The downside of perfectionism is that if you wait until you think it's done
you're going to get feedback really, really late in the game. So one of the drawbacks about perfectionism is it takes a long time to get feedback, which means that if... All things remaining equal, right? Time is finite. So if everyone has a week to get things done and you wait till that week's over, you get one round of feedback and you may or may not have time to correct it.
But if I get a draft on Monday and get feedback on that draft and make tweaks on Tuesday and get several rounds of feedback on my iterations on Tuesday, then if I keep that process up till Friday, there's a couple things that happens. One, the outcome is a lot better. Two, I've now brought other people into my process who have given feedback and feel bought in because they were Let into the process and now I have
individuals who have given me feedback. They're now championing what we're doing. This works with internal stakeholders. This works with customers. So it's in everyone's best interest, but especially yours, to resist the urge.
for perfectionism because feedback loops beat some idealistic perception of perfection every time and here's the truth nothing is ever perfect we are fallible imperfect human beings we are finite and limited in our thinking and regardless of how long we've been doing product management product design engineering
And no matter how good we are, we have gaps because we are imperfect, right? We get better over time. Things become more intuitive. We get faster, but we still make mistakes. And that's why product management is a team sport.
across the disciplines and across functions right we should be humble enough and never too haughty enough to not accept feedback anywhere because Great sources of inspiration can come from anywhere, but we will never tap into those great sources of inspiration unless and until we increase our feedback loops. So resist the urge for perfection.
In the spirit of MVP, the whole purpose of an MVP is to get feedback and iterate as quickly and as cheaply as possible to test the many assumptions that you have. So as soon as you have something... that is adequate to test an assumption you have about what may or may not be true what may or may not be usable what may or may not be desirable what may or may not be feasible
The sooner you get that feedback, the better. Otherwise, you're delaying the inevitable delays that will come up because you have failed to address those assumptions as you've identified them.
So again, I'll reiterate, it's important to have high standards, but it's also important to have realistic expectations. There's diminishing returns on... taking the approach where you lock yourself in a room and Come out with the stone tablets of truth for what the design the product spec the proof of concept should be Have realistic expectations that you don't have all the answers and that you need to treat this as a team sport to get the best outcomes.
So again, the best PMs are not perfectionists. The best PMs are the ones who have the quickest feedback loops with their team, their cross-functional partners, and their customers. Thanks for joining me today for another lesson in product management. I hope you benefited from this. And if you have, please hit that subscribe button. Leave us a rating and review on Apple Podcasts, on Spotify.
and give us some feedback. What do you like? What do you not like? What do you want to hear more of? I want to hear from you, especially if you're on Spotify. I have the comments turned on, so drop us a comment with... what you thought of the episode or what you want to hear for future episodes. And I'll make sure to shout out you personally and where the idea for the podcast came from. So thanks again for joining me today and I'll see you next week on Lessons in Product Management.