The Product Paradox

back with a “5 minute Friday” audio edition

key concepts I cover in this snippet:

1. leadership accountability for outcomes

2. functional accountability for drivers

3. the fuzziness of product accountability

4. measuring the true impact of PMs

5. product empathy for other functions

I’d love to hear from listeners about their experiences with cross-functional accountability - please chime in via comments👇. And if you enjoyed this post, please consider subscribing.

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further reading / references

• product market fit is one attempt to gauge whether a PM team is having impact, which is a concept I’ve had mixed feelings about in the past

• the idea of PMs as cross-functional leads vs feature facilitiors is a recurring theme in this newsletter

• if you enjoyed this of cross-functional fuzzines, you might like a previous 5 minute Friday about Functional Fluidity

• another function that has similarly fuzzy accountability for “success” is CSM, a topic I wrote about just earlier this week (and our first co-authored post)

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childish drawing / interpretation