Product Operating Model Series: Powered by Insights

Issue #36

In today's edition, among other things:

💜 Editor’s Note: Some Days You're Just Trying Not to Drown
💜 Product Operating Model Series: Powered by Insights

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It will take you almost an hour to read this issue. Lots of content (or meat)! (For vegans - lots of tofu!).

Grab a notebook 📰 and your favorite beverage 🍵☕.

DeStaRe Foundation

Editor’s Note by Alex 💜

Some Days You're Just Trying Not to Drown

An editorial about the weight of impossible expectations

You know that feeling when you open your laptop on Monday morning and the sheer volume of shit that needs your attention makes your chest tight? When every notification feels like another small emergency, and you're already behind before you've even started?

Yeah. That one.

I've been thinking about this lately - how we've created this culture where admitting you're overwhelmed is somehow a personal failing. Like if you were just better at prioritization, or had the right productivity system, or practiced more mindfulness, you'd be floating instead of drowning.

It's bullshit.

You're not drowning because you're weak. You're drowning because the expectations are impossible. Because we've normalized a pace that's fundamentally unsustainable. Because somewhere along the way, "thriving under pressure" became a job requirement instead of a red flag about organizational dysfunction.

Every day you're supposed to be:

• The strategic visionary (knowing where the product should go)

• The tactical executor (making sure shit actually gets done)

• The user advocate (fighting for what customers need)

• The business translator (speaking stakeholder)

• The team therapist (managing everyone's anxieties and conflicts)

• The data analyst (making sense of metrics that contradict each other)

• The fortune teller (predicting what will work when nobody really knows)

And you're supposed to do all of this while being "collaborative" and "agile" and maintaining "work-life balance." While smiling. While showing "executive presence."

Some days, just keeping your head above water is the achievement.

The worst part? We've all bought into the mythology. We look at other PMs who seem to have their shit together and think we're the only ones struggling. We scroll through LinkedIn posts about "lessons learned from failure" and wonder why our failures don't feel like learning opportunities - they just feel like... failures.

But here's what I know from years of mentoring product people: Everyone is barely keeping it together sometimes. That PM who gives the polished conference talk? They had a panic attack in the bathroom thirty minutes before going on stage. That "thought leader" posting about product strategy? They spent last Tuesday afternoon crying in their car because their roadmap is a disaster and they don't know how to fix it.

The pressure is real. The expectations are impossible. And pretending otherwise isn't helping anyone.

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The Perfectionist's Paradox

I'll be honest with you - I'm a perfectionist. On my good days, I fucking love it. I thrive on pushing limits, diving deep into complex problems, crafting frameworks that actually work. I get high off delivering something that exceeds expectations. There's this rush when everything clicks - when the research is solid, the strategy is tight, and the team is aligned. Those days, I feel like I could solve any product problem thrown at me.

But then there are the other days. The weeks when perfectionism becomes a prison.

Last month, I spent three days rewriting the same email to a client. Three days. Because it wasn't "strategic" enough. Because it didn't capture all the nuances. Because what if they thought I wasn't adding enough value? Meanwhile, twenty other things sat in my queue, growing more urgent by the hour.

That's the thing about perfectionism in product management - it's both your superpower and your kryptonite. The same drive that makes you dig deeper into user research, that makes you question assumptions others accept blindly, that pushes you to find elegant solutions to messy problems... that same drive can also paralyze you when the stakes feel too high and the timeline is too short.

Some weeks, I'm the consultant who helps teams break through their biggest challenges. Other weeks, I'm the person staring at my laptop at 11 PM, paralyzed because nothing I'm creating feels good enough. Because every decision feels like it could be the wrong one. Because the gap between what I know I'm capable of and what I'm actually producing feels insurmountable.

And you know what the worst part is? The guilt. The voice that says, "You should be better at this by now. You've been doing this for years. Other people are counting on you. Why can't you just figure it out?"

But here's what I've learned, slowly and painfully: Some days you're the person who pushes boundaries and sets new standards. Other days, you're the person who shows up and does the minimum viable work to keep things moving. Both versions of you are necessary. Both versions of you are enough.

The perfectionist in me hates writing that. But the human in me knows it's true.

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The Survival Mode Reality

There are weeks when "good enough" isn't a compromise - it's an act of resistance against impossible standards. When sending that imperfect email is better than sending no email at all. When having a mediocre strategy session is better than canceling because you haven't prepared the perfect agenda.

I used to think survival mode was failure. Now I think it's wisdom.

Because here's what nobody tells you about product management: it's not a sprint, and it's not even a marathon. It's more like one of those obstacle course races where they keep adding new obstacles while you're already running. Some obstacles you'll leap over gracefully. Others you'll crawl under, scraped and muddy. And sometimes, you'll just sit down for a minute and catch your breath while other people run past you.

That doesn't make you weak. It makes you human.

The mythology of product management sells us this image of the always-on, perpetually optimizing, constantly learning PM. But real humans have finite energy. Real humans have bad days, family emergencies, health issues, and periods where their brain just... stops cooperating.

Real humans sometimes need to choose between being excellent at work or being present for their kids. Between pushing for the perfect solution or shipping something that works well enough. Between being the strategic visionary or just being someone who keeps the team moving forward.

And on those days when you're just trying not to drown? You're not failing at product management. You're succeeding at being human in an inhumane system.

Some days you're brilliant. Some days you're drowning. Both can be true.

And on the drowning days? The goal isn't to swim faster. It's just to keep breathing until the water calms down.

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There's no lesson here. No framework to implement. No call to action. Just acknowledgment that this work is hard, and some days, surviving it is enough.

In case nobody told you lately: you are enough. You are doing your best. You are not alone.

And sorry about the soft emotional stuff, but I believe we all need that from time to time.

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📝 Powered by Insights: The Strategic Compass for Product Excellence

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Core Definition

Using data, customer feedback, new enabling technologies, and industry analysis to inform strategic decisions and identify leverage points for maximum impact.

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The Four Primary Insight Sources

📊 Data Analysis

• What it reveals: Customer behavior patterns, usage trends, performance metrics

• Key focus areas:

  • How customers use your product (behavioral data)