Daily Learning Blog Experiment Day 1

Today I begin my experiment.

The experiment is simple, I'm going to spend 10 -15 minutes 5 of 7 days a week writing something I learned today.

The rules:

• No AI

• Minimal images (only if they actually mean something to the writing and I'm inspired to find one, no pressure to just feed some algorithm)

• Authenticity, it's gotta be something I really felt I actually learned and not some vague aspiration of learning.

• Any learning is ok, some days I might

  • talk about the perfect coffee or tea brewing experience

  • it might be about product stuff

  • it might be about gym or nutrition

Ok, so some days it actually might be some vague aspiration of learning :), but hopefully the spirit has been captured in the above points.

My overall hypothesis, note this might bias my learnings:

"When I feel good, those around me feel good."

Yup, it's a bit on the wooey 'magical thinking' side and, I've found that it actually works, like when you think magic and can be practical and give it your heart (don't just expect things to happen with no effort) magic really does happen.

So, with the intro out of the way, what did I learn today?

Today...I led a backlog grooming session that felt bad (to me anyway).

A bit of context, I'm the solo product manager in a small startup in the healthtech space and I love what I do.

I had stayed up until 2 am writing stories last minute, because this is a relatively new space for me and it's been a challenge to keep up since my priority has still been my family.

So I spend many evenings chilling with my wife and two teens and many late nights catching up to make sure:

• everyone can keep moving forward with minimal ambiguity

• things are well defined

• stories align with the heart of the company and serve the primary business goal, 'survive long enough to fullfill our prime healthcare directive' (witheld for now, I haven't officially asked my co-founder to publish this stuff)

Overall, this actually makes me feel awesome and fullfilled, and I've already seen that when I feel good ( and don't get triggered or defensive) the team feels good.

Pretty simple right?!

So, what felt off about the backlog grooming?

1. I had written most of the stories at like 2am the night before

2. The team didn't have time to review them, so it was mostly me lecturing to folks who felt like 'deer in headlights'

3. One of the stories (checking for duplicate entries) was really a nice to have. Sure in a larger company it would have been considered a high priority, but at an early stage startup it's non-essential, has minimal impact to the user experience and no impact to the company value proposition.

Fortunately, one of our amazing engineers called this out and asked 'how does this story help the financials?'

The old me (say 6 years ago) might have gotten defensive about this. The me of today realized immediately that he was absolutely right and I wrote this story because several folks on the team asked for it.

It was a good reminder to:

Slow down - don't just write up the thing someone asked for

Always keep the main goal/vision in mind - at this stage the main vision is nothing short of transforming how physicians manage their own practices.

Ok, I think I've exceeded my 15 minute allowance here, but this is my first entry.

I hope you've enjoyed the read!

Cheers for now,

Mark