Main Takeaways: - Building for a few / building for reach - Depth / breadth - Features / tech debt

1. Navigating Polarities as a PM
by Google Product Leader
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5. Navigating Polarities as a PM
Bhooshan Mogal
Product Manager, Google

6. About me
● Software Engineer -> PM at startup -> PM at Google
● Data Analytics, Cloud, B2B
● Steep, ongoing (but fun!) learning curve as a PM
○ Mentors played a huge role, passionate about helping other PMs
● Fun fact: I love memes!
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/bdmogal
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/bdmogal

7. Agenda
● PM dilemma
● Decision making and polarities
● Identifying polarities
● Navigating polarities + Case Study
● Takeaways

8. PM dilemma

9. - PMs are GMs of the product
- Responsibility without direct authority
- Up, down and sideway communication skills
- Requires soft-power
- Ownership
- Give credit for the good, own the bad
- Perpetual decision-making
- Unpleasant - Ability to say “no”
The PM dilemma

10. Decision-making
and Polarities

11. About decisions
● Lasting impact
○ Product, team and individual
● Pressure to make the right decision
● Lack of sufficient evidence
● Hard to please all stakeholders
● Over-reliance on intuition
● Choosing between paradoxes
Which leads us into - polarities!

12. The principle of polarity
"Everything is dual; everything has poles;
everything has its pair of opposites; like and
unlike are the same; opposites are identical in
nature, but different in degree; extremes meet;
all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may
be reconciled."
Source: The Kybalion - the 7 Hermetic principles - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Kybalion

13. Polarity
A polarity is an issue with two
interdependent poles.
- F. Scott Fitzgerald
The test of a first-rate intelligence is the
ability to hold two opposed ideas in mind at
the same time and still retain the ability to
function.

14. Polarities (or not?)
FEATURES TECH DEBT
STRATEGIC TACTICAL
DIFFERENTIATION TABLE STAKES
PREDICTABILITY AGILITY
ADOPTION RETENTION
REVENUE GROWTH
BUILD BUY
BREADTH DEPTH
BUILDING
FOR A FEW
BUILDING
FOR REACH
USER
EXPERIENCE
PLATFORM

15. Identifying
Polarities

16. Characteristics
Two choices only Interdependency Truth
Ongoing
● Options require one
other to exist
● Both must exist to
achieve success
● 2 paradoxical,
competing options
● > 2 choices = absence
of polarity
● Never has one right
answer
● Needs constant
evaluation
● Both options are true
● The degree of truth
varies over time

17. It’s not about picking one over the other
Versus AND

18. Navigating
Polarities

19. Polarity Mapping/Polarity Thinking
● Visual framework for making decisions
○ Employs structured thinking to decision-making
● Effective for navigating paradoxes
● Based on weighing costs and benefits of poles
● Helps navigate ambiguity
● Fosters collaboration, consensus-building

20. Polarity Map
Positive results from focusing on the left pole
Fears from over-focusing on the left pole, neglecting the
right pole
Positive results from focusing on the right pole
Fears from over-focusing on the right pole, neglecting
the left pole
LEFT POLE RIGHT POLE
Greatest Fear
North Star
Action plan: Action plan:
Early warning
signs:
Early warning
signs:
∞

21. Polarity Map - example - Breadth AND Depth
● Stands up to competition
● Larger target customer base/SAM/TAM/SOM
● Jack of all trades, master of none
● Hard to find product-market fit
● Can handle complexity
● Customers/users can use in mission-critical
envs
● Going down a rabithole without validation
● Significant investment, harder to recover
BREADTH DEPTH
Product lacks features, and
existing features are incomplete
Product covers a variety of
features that cover entire CUJs
Action plan:
Continuous eye on
market to find
areas of expansion
Action plan:
Ensure continuous
investment in top
used features
Early warning
signs:
Product has large surface
area, customers only use
20% of features
Early warning
signs:
Customers don’t expand
their usage of the
product
∞

22. Case Study - Original AND Licensed content @ Netflix
● Avoids licensing cost
● Better positioning against competitive pressure
● Decreasing margins due to greater operating costs
● Insufficient content
● Easier, especially for geographical expansion
● Helps create a good breadth of content
● Loss of viewership due to lack of originality
● Ever increasing licensing costs due to competitive pressure
ORIGINAL LICENSED
Overall lack of content,
decreasing viewership
Best-in-class content in terms of
both quality and quantity
Action plan:
Continuous
investment in
high-quality,
original content
Action plan:
Incentivize content
creators with highly
competitive licensing
options all over the world
Early warning
signs:
Expansion is hard, user
base is not diversifying
Early warning
signs:
Decreasing viewership
due to lack of original,
high-quality content
∞

23. Key Takeaways

24. Best practices 1 Identify and raise awareness - polarities, north star, greatest fears
2 Explicitly capture upsides and downsides, seek both upsides
3 As leaders, brainstorm, listen, hold the tension
4 Find patterns and red flags
5 Design and conduct experiments
6 Reflect and iterate periodically

25. Further reading
● Polarity Mapping -
https://universityinnovation.org/wiki/Resource:Polarity_Mapping
● Cynefin Framework -
https://hbr.org/2007/11/a-leaders-framework-for-decision-making

26. Thank you!

27. www.productschool.com
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