For years, many of us have operated in environments where ‘shipping is the heartbeat of the company.’ Velocity charts and feature counts were proxies for progress. But let’s be honest, how many of those features truly moved the needle on core business metrics?
The current economic climate is changing the conversation. I’m seeing a massive shift in executive mindset—away from ‘how much did we ship?’ to ‘how much impact did we create?’ The C-suite is scrutinizing every dollar spent, and product teams are under pressure to connect their work directly to revenue, retention, or cost savings. This isn’t just about being ‘outcome-oriented’ in theory; it’s about survival. It means ruthless prioritization, saying ‘no’ to good ideas that don’t serve the primary goal, and potentially slowing down the feature treadmill to invest more in discovery and validation. It’s a move from being a feature project manager to a true business owner of your domain. It’s challenging, but it might be the best thing to happen to the craft of product management in years.
How is this pressure manifesting in your organization? Are you finding it easier or harder to make the case for outcome-driven work when the pressure to ‘just build something’ is also high?