How the Watchtower Reflection improved the impact I had as a PM and product leader
Setting aside time to think? Are you crazy?
This is not one of my typical posts about product management, because it could be used by any type of knowledge worker. That being said, product leaders are super busy, so it did become a huge leaver in how much impact I was able to deliver.
The busy person problem with time allocation
Product leaders have multiple competing priorities coming from all sides. It's easy to spend most of the time reacting, instead of proactively investing our time in the most impactful things. When this is happening, it's common to feel your calendar is not yours anymore, and you work overtime to "get some work done".
Working longer is an unsustainable solution, that's where the Watchtower Reflection comes in.
What is the Watchtower Reflection
The Watchtower Reflection is a technique to help you get out of the day-to-day firefighting and responding mode. Its purpose is to pause and reflect on the current situation (hence, like climbing a "watchtower" to observe what is below) and drawing a plan based on that reflection.
There are weekly and daily components to it.
Weekly reflection
I book on my calendar the last 2 hours of every Friday for the Watchtower reflection. I usually take less time, but this gives you breathing room.
Highlights and lowlights of the week
I start out reflecting on highlights and lowlights of my week in a few categories I choose to be the most important ones:
The first time you do it, you need to define some categories that are important to you.
As I write this post, the big and small areas I have are:
Personal
- Health
- Family
- CareerProduct lead
- Direct report A
- Direct report B
(…)
- Product XStakeholders
- Leader
- Peers
- C-level
Those change over time, but not too frequently. If they do change too much for you, you might be setting it at a too granular level. Which is ok if it works for you 🤷🏽
Setting goals in each category
After I've reflected on the highlights and lowlights of the week, I draw some possible goals in each category. Sometimes some categories have none in a particular week because I am choosing to focus somewhere else.
After this brainstorm of possible goals, I pick a few that I find the most important. Then, for each chosen goal, I brainstorm actions I could take to reach the goal. After that, I choose the tasks I want to commit to.
For each goal, I do something like this:
GOAL: stop annoying behavior from direct report X
Actions:
1. Write feedback with clear example of the behavior and the impact it had in me
2. Share feedback on 1:1
After this, I add those goals and actions on my to-do list for the week. If there is something I can do right now, I also do it (remember, I reserved 2 hours for this). The goal is that you set your next week for success.
Daily reflection
At the beginning of my day (and when things are too hectic, sometimes at the end), I reserve about 10 min to review those goals and actions. Also, to choose what I want to accomplish on that day.
I paint each goal in red, yellow, or green. And I think if I need some course correction, like adding/removing actions. Sometimes I also remove/change goals based on the situation, but that is not very frequent. I choose what I want to do on that day based on this smaller reflection.
Closing thoughts
That's it. It doesn't look like much because it really isn't. But the change in how much you will be able to achieve will be palpable in a very short time. There is also the added benefit of being able to celebrate at the end of the week when you reach your goals — it's very easy for us to just focus on what still needs to get done, not thinking about what was done and what was good about the week.