A Product Manager’s Guide to Streamlining Meetings and Emails
Great Product Managers and Product Owners know that communicating with large teams and key constituents is a major part of the job (among other important things). The road to that realization can be rough, especially if you’re constantly fighting to “find time to do the work.” The reality is that constant communication is the work. PM roles are highly relational, so it’s critical to accept that a significant portion of your time will be spent talking with other people via meetings, Slack, email, 1:1s, standups, and beyond.
The real secret to wrangling team communication isn’t to resist the chaos, but to figure out how to organize the chaos. Here’s what I’ve seen work well:
1. Know who you need to be in communication with
First, identify the people who rely on you for information AND who you rely on to get things done. To steer those answers, ask yourself questions like:
What am I working on?
In order for me to solve X, or complete this work, or finish this feature set, who do I need to engage in order to be successful?
Who does my work impact?
If I’m successful, who will face downstream implications, for good or for bad?
Who needs to know about this so they’re not surprised?
What’s the timeline?
When will constituents need to be informed?
When will I need something from my teams?
Your answers to these questions will result in a list of names. Think of it as your call sheet. Just like a sales rep manages their contacts, you’ll have a list that details team member roles, what they might need from you, what you need from them, how to contact them, and when you need to get in touch with them.
2. Organize your constituents into categories
If building a list of names is step one, step two is organizing that list. Whether you have 10 or 20 or 150 people on your call sheet, that’s a big lift! The good news is that not all of these people require the same frequency of communication, and leaning into that insight is what will allow you to scale and – gasp! – even streamline team meetings and emails.
To begin, identify clusters of people who need to receive a similar level of information or frequency of communication. Who needs to be informed vs engaged vs consulted with vs seated at the table with you? Identify your inner circle (the people who need frequent communication and 1:1 time), the next radius (the people who need semi-frequent communication), the next radius (the people who need bi-weekly or monthly communication), and so on.
By lumping people together based on their information needs, you end up managing four groups rather than 40 individuals, for example.
3. Map out how you’ll communicate with your categorized groups
Information that could be for anyone is for no one. Sure, you’ve got a handful of nicely-organized groups, but if you aren’t tailoring their information or delivering it in a format that resonates, then it’s all for nothing. No one reads content that isn’t customized – it requires too much time and energy to sort through to find what’s pertinent. Thus, step three requires you to get more specific about how you’ll share information with your groups.
Perhaps Group A is your inner circle and requires frequent granular details via Slack, email and weekly 1:1s, while Group B only requires a weekly recap email with key progress updates and status markers. Maybe Group C is only concerned with what happened last month/quarter, while Group D just needs to know what’s ahead.
And hey, it might take some refinement to find your stride, as your call sheet certainly isn’t a fixed resource. For example, if you notice that you’re having a lot of 1:1 meetings with different individuals on the same topic, use that as an opportunity to streamline things by getting everyone together for one meeting so you aren’t repeating the information 10 times over.
Grouping and theming will help you avoid too many 1:1s, as well as the one-size-fits-all meeting (because those never work). And customizing and batching communications will help scale the amount of outreach you’re doing on a regular basis.
4. Tie up loose ends (for everyone’s sake)
To make things easier on yourself and maintain a buttoned-up comms plan, set aside time at the end of each week to reflect on the meetings, Slack channels, emails, and calls with your team. Ask yourself these questions to take stock:
Who did I meet with?
What were the action items and takeaways?
Did those conversations trigger people I need to follow up with next week?
Did I learn anything that others need to be aware of?
Paired with your call sheet, a quick 15-minute survey will give you guidance on how to prioritize in the coming week (what emails, calls, or meetings need to happen, based on what we did or didn’t accomplish this week?), and tie up loose ends for the week at hand. It’s in these reflective moments that I usually spot a communication opportunity (“I should really connect Bob with Sue on the topic discussed Tuesday – let me send a quick email intro!”).
Not only does this set you up for a better week ahead, but being really buttoned up about follow-ups tells your constituents that you’re staying ahead of the game (or at least on top of it).
What we’re essentially talking about is a personal communication strategy for handling team correspondence, collaboration and reporting. I know that communicating with different people at different times – and a lot – can feel overwhelming, but the most successful PMs understand that developing, nurturing, and maintaining healthy relationships inside the org is a critical part of the job. The chaos is going to happen either way, the choice is yours to take chaos into your own hands and establish an organized approach that will streamline things for everyone.