Operating in Grey Areas as a Product Manager | by Brian Miki | Jun, 2024

Hey folks, today I wanted to share some thoughts on operating in grey areas as a product manager. Working through ambiguous scenarios is something I have had to reaccustom myself with since starting my internship and wanted to share some of the tips I have been experimenting with this summer. Without further ado, hope you enjoy today’s content! (Btw, Here is a link to a previous article I wrote on this topic.

As a product manager, there are many factors constantly changing like technological innovation, customer needs and even internal factors such as team dependencies. As a product manager it is important to rely on your first principles and align your team as you explore opportunities and ambiguous situations. Here are some of the ideas I have been using to navigate in grey areas.

My first tip for navigating ambiguity and driving alignment is to visualize your ideas. When you are able to draw out and articulate your ideas to cross functional teams and senior executives it can help you clarify ideas, understand gaps and identify any underlying assumptions you may have in your thought process.

For me personally, I have been able to align with my manager by drawing out diagrams and mind maps to better understand the problem space I am working in and how this opportunity can impact our business.

My second tip is to find a buddy in your organization who you can shoot ideas at. Typically, when you are able to find commonalities in ideas, problem spaces and approaches with your colleagues it means you are on the right track.

Having a PM buddy to share ideas with has helped me think critically about my thought process and also forced me to find data that aligns with my decisions. This has been extremely helpful in helping define a course of action, influencing cross functional teams and building confidence in myself and my approach.

My third tip is to have a mindset focused on experimentation. When navigating ambiguity you are pretty much never going to always be on the money. I have never been perfect with this idea but I try to never fall in love with my solutions. Being able to pivot, fail fast and try out new ideas quickly has been extremely beneficial in helping me get to where I need to be, not where I want.

However, I am (almost) never on the money. But this process of being able to experiment and pivoting my approach quickly has helped me to navigate opportunities a lot easier. I am definitely no millionaire but have created a process of experimenting that works well and recommend you try too!

I hope you have found this article insightful. While operating in grey areas as a product manager can be extremely intimidating I hope you found some of these tips useful and try them out for yourself. Most importantly, enjoy the process!

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About Me:
My name is Brian and I am an early career product manager. I typically write about product management, school and self-development topics. If you are interested in that type of content, feel free to drop a follow or connect with me on LinkedIn.