5 Hands-On Team Communication Techniques for Product Managers

Hi reader, this blog will take you through five practical and proven methods for improving communication within your working team. As a Product Manager, you have to work synchronously with multiple teams like Tech, Design, UX, QA, Data Analytics, Support. Therefore meetings are an integral tool to meet up with your team members and discuss updates, information, issues, bottlenecks, etc

This blog will tell you what should be the communication strategy with your team, how to set the tone of these meetings, how to handle crises with strategy & effective communication, and how you can bring in transparency and openness to the team

Technique 1

Do not start the call asking for updates on the timeline or work progress. Start the call in a conversational manner. Ask people about how are doing, how their day is going, or how the last weekend was. You can even start off with some trending topic like some new movie release, some trending news in the city that everyone would be aware of and they can contribute to. This will set the tone of the call and will make them feel that you are here as part of the team. Many times, PMs start straight away asking for updates on work, even Senior PMs do this, but this will make your team morale dip and they will feel that the only connection you have with them is for work. It is always good to have a team who works with satisfaction and eagerness and as a PM you can play a big role in that

Technique 2

Ask for updates from the team lead, if they are part of the call. This is especially the case for the Tech team or Design team. Even though developers, designers are present in the call, it is not a good idea to directly ask them for updates, since the Team Lead is responsible for managing the task. Therefore, it is preferred that you ask the Team Lead for updates. This will respect their professional boundaries and will also reduce the hassle of taking updates from everyone. If you want to add, ask, correct anyone’s information in the call, of course, you can freely do that

Technique 3

Do not give in to panic or stress in the call. These things are very frequent in the development process — timelines getting stretched, issues in the product flow, bugs, people on leave due to reasons, ad hoc work given to the team by someone else, etc. The key is not to panic no matter what the problem. So when your team talks about an issue, your job is to understand the depth and reason of the problem. Try to understand the issue at the core level and ask the team member to explain the problem in detail and understand why the problem is happening. A lot of times, just by asking to explain the problem in detail and delving deeper into it, either you or your team members will find out a solution. If you are not able to figure out a solution in the call, take some time after the call and think deeply about it to come up with some other possible solutions or alternatives to the problem. When you have some idea or if you want to discuss it again, then just get on a separate call with the required people and brainstorm

Technique 4

If development timelines are getting stretched for certain reasons, try to understand what the core issues are. Take some time yourself to do an estimation for the time that should be required to solve this issue. For doing this you will need knowledge of software development. If you don’t have that, start learning tech concepts that will help you to get an understanding of tech work and what goes into it. Once you have your own estimation of the timeline, get on a separate call with your Tech Lead to understand the why’s and reason out with her/him why your estimated timeline cannot be achieved. Remember to keep this discussion logical and based on data

Technique 5

Celebrate the wins — both small and big. It is very important for people in your team to feel that they are achieving something, and that will keep them motivated. So always appreciate and thank your team for feature releases, product launches, resolving bugs quickly, great designs, good support work, good testing job, etc. Mention the wins in the call and give credit to the team. For big wins like major releases, arrange for a nice treat or gifts for your team. You can talk to your Product Head / Management to get some funds allocated under team building activities. These small gestures will go a long way for bonding the team and getting better outcomes