Why don't you just ...

  • 12 May, 2022

“Why don’t you just do …?”

“You should just …”

If you have worked in product management for more than a few months someone has said this to you. It’s deeply frustrating and can feel condescending.

I suspect that the product management team at Twitter is going to get a buttload of that if Elon Musk takes over.

Relax …

It’s not their fault if they don’t have all the context or if they are stating the obivous. They are just trying to help.

When I hear this, I’ll usually respond with some variation of “thanks for the feedback, we’ve tried that and it didn’t work because X.”

Resist the urge to lose your cool. I know this is hard but remember you don’t have all the answers. If we react poorly when someone provides us feedback we close down discussion and debate – the life blood of product management.

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