Product Management Lessons from Poker 🃏
If you are a Poker fan or even if you just have an acquaintance, this post will be more relatable to you — but this post is also useful for anyone who is wondering/googling what poker is.
♣️ Be Bold — Take the Lead
In Poker sometimes early positions have the benefit of raising early on and setting the bar. Of course, this is a tricky situation as the player raising the bet doesn’t have much clue about the other player's hand (at least initially). But there is a benefit to it — many players might not risk their money and fold giving the player who raised an early mover advantage.
Similarly — In Product Management, more often companies and leaders who make the first move, and launch their product first in the market have this advantage. Even if you are not the first mover — you can still reraise the standards and win a more significant share.
♥️ Be Committed
In Poker, sometimes you get a sound card let’s say a medium pocket pair and you think your opponent’s range is a draw. In that situation, you stay back and stick to the pot till you Win. Your strategy is to be Pot Committed.
In real-life Product Management, when we believe in the product, the outcome, and our decision is based on research and data — even when we face tough times — such as no movement, and not much growth — we stick there until we see really good results. There is more often value in being Product Committed.
♦️ Prioritize Data-Driven Decisions
Professional Poker players don’t make their decisions just based on gut and feelings — most of their decisions are backed with complex mathematics and statistics and probability. This gives them an idea of the probability of winning a hand, the range of other players’ hands viz competition in the market, and lastly Poker Odds (Return on Investment).
The same is required and very true in Product Management. One of the most critical jobs of a Product Owner or Product Manager is to make decisions — Priority decisions — Picking one work over another. Continuing doing something to gain more or stopping doing something to reduce the loss. Metrics such as how many users will be impacted, cost vs value, dependencies vs nice to have, and so on.
Asking why am I playing this hand or why am I prioritizing this feature will make you a winner in Poker as well as in Product.
♠️ Change Strategy — and it is Okay to Fold
In poker, every action bold (call/raise) or subtle (movements of players) gives us information and clues to play our hand well. We are always comparing the strength of our hands against other players. And, every street (new community cards) gives us more insights on possibilities and changes the strength of the cards ours as well as others.
Think of the same in Product Management. In my experience, we built some features on the highest priority and later realized that it was never released to production which is not just sad and demotivating but also a monetary loss. As Product People, we are always getting new micro and macro pieces of information from the market, our competitors, our customers, and our users. We must connect this information at all times to make sense of and decide.
As it is not just advisable but also wise to fold poor hands in Poker, it is better to stop an unfinished work than finish and never use it. This will make the Product Person and the team more successful to learn early on.
I am curious to learn what other Sports lesson do you practice in Product Management. And, I wish you nothing but success and learning in Poker, Product Development, or any sport that you love.
