A game of hot potato

Catch! Now, throw it back.

As a product manager, you will face interrupts. A LOT of interrupts. Sometimes your day will be pretty much an endless stream of interruptions, with one-two preplanned meetings in between... challenging, but hey, we're PM's. We like the action.

So, what can you do when it all comes in and everybody in the world seems to need something from you? Because the one thing you can't do is procrastinate.

Unlike you, most engineers do not spend their day jumping between multiple projects and subjects, more likely they have planned to work on one or two items during their workday. And now they are blocked in their work - because they need your input.

Of course the price of delay is immediate, you have a resource who is waiting rather than working to advance the project's goals. But as the delay builds up, the real damage occurs - the person on the other side is stuck in their work, and you are not replying... if you don't care enough about their work to reply promptly, why should they?

This is why I firmly believe a product manager needs to be alert and responsive. Delays on your side may well translate into delays on multiple other parties' side, impact your schedule and your team's motivation. You need to move fast.

Task and time management are ultra crucial subjects, and will receive their own article when I get to it (pun intended :). Until then, I will keep it simple:

1. Read your IM's, assigned bugs/tasks and emails - every day, all day. Try to clear your inbox as soon as you can in your workday; if time does not allow for it, make sure to scan for critical items until you get to properly review.

2. If a response to an email takes 120 seconds or less, send it right away.

3. If it will take longer to reply - and it doesn't block a critical task - put it aside until you are sure there aren't higher priority items/finished your inbox scan. And then do it.

4. If you can't provide an adequate answer within today, let the other person know that you have received the request and will reply. Tell them when.

5. Set yourself a reasonable target date to provide a full answer/solution.

The bottom line is simple - your colleagues will often inherit their motivation and sense of task priority directly from you. Respond fast = show them you care = make them feel their work is important. Need I say more?