In a low-trust team…
- pm: “when is it getting done??” (Because they don’t trust anybody else cares or is working on it)
- Devs/design: “what do you think???” (Because they don’t trust that they’ll be safe if the PM responds without them knowing. And they don’t trust themselves. Finally, if they don’t get PM’s blessing, the sword of damacles will be hanging over their heads.)
- Devs, when they see a large story, internal freak out. PM’s shoving more work down their throats.
- PM’s, when they see unexpected designs or behaviour, internally freak out. Designers/engineers shirking responsibility yet again.
- Meetings feel cold, unpersonable, and unpleasant (because nobody wants to be around each other and minimize time - when I’m around you, there’s a risk of suffering/painful interaction)
- There are gaps in the conversation. Long, long gaps.
- Code, Figma, and Backlog all become silo’d,
High-trust environment:
- PM’s give just the problem, not the solution. (Because they trust the expertise, initiative, and care of the others)
- Designers feel free to experiment, try new visual ideas, and suggest new out of the box solutions that the PM couldn’t have imagined. (Because they trust that they won’t be shut down when they invest themselves into their work and suggest novel solutions)
- Engineers feel free to prioritize both PM’s items and problems that they personally care about (internal enablement, tech debt). They also feel the agency to to propose changes, raise questions, and bring negative experiences to the forefront (with trust, these things are gateways to a better working environment, not a burden to be hidden.)
Distrust breeds huge projects, trust breeds well-scoped projects
If you love them, you will give them autonomy OR, being a control freak while also being a product manager
Kanban vs. Scrum: a system of radical trust vs. a system of imposed restraints.