Lenny Distilled

Crisis demands throwing out the playbook

Strategy → Roadmaps & Planning

This is a product leader, it's a real wartime moment where you just need to blow up roadmaps, share context with everyone and say, 'Okay, everyone, we have a totally different mandate than what we did a couple weeks ago.'

Alex HardimanAn inside look at how the New York Times builds product
Supporting

We went into two week planning mode. Greg Greeley, who was the president of Airbnb used to say, 'Look, can't plan for a year, can't plan for a quarter. We're going to plan every two weeks. We're going to react to every two weeks.'

Sanchan SaxenaWhy Uber's CPO delivers food on weekends | Sachin Kansal
Supporting

The speed of news is so fast that you don't have time to mess with roadmaps. We really have teams who are freed up from some of the normal processes around that, so they can really just focus on storytelling for really big stories and pieces.

Alex HardimanAn inside look at how the New York Times builds product
Supporting

Two types of crisis. One is I would call that a cash crisis. All of a sudden, your cash program or plan is being jeopardized, losing a customer, disappearing investor. And the other one is lose of product market fit.

Uri LevineA founder's guide to crisis management
Supporting

When product market fit disappear, you actually need to go back to square one. Then you basically say everything that I know so far is irrelevant anymore.

Uri LevineA founder's guide to crisis management