31. Think product management is hard? Try urban planning instead. Lessons in product management from a converted urban planner.

What do product management and urban planning have in common?

Well… Both require strategic planning, allocation of scarce resources, stakeholder management, communication, and ability to navigate the uncertain.

How many stakeholders do you have to keep in mind when planning that new zoning for a commercial area in a downtown residential area? How do you allocate a budget with so many competing priorities?

The extreme competency in diplomacy, careful planning and relationship management that is required for urban planning, is very much applicable to product management.

What feature should we build next? Do we ask the development team to work on it right away? or do we work on the stability of the system and that growing tech debt first? What is sales asking for? What are customers saying? What do customers really need?

I talked to my very good friend David Strathy-Miller to find out the answers to these questions.

David is a Senior Product Manager at Centerbase. Like many Product Managers, he didn’t set out to become one early in his career. Far from it… But he was certainly getting ready for it. He has a Master of City and Regional Planning, he loves diplomacy and international relationships, traveled to almost all continents in the world, worked as an Ops Manager for a long time at a Default Asset Management company, and he was one of the first to transition to a Product Role when the concept was implemented there.

He is a thoughtful, compassionate friend. I worked with him for more than 7 years at Altisource, and he has become my favorite travel guide, and a strategic counselor for work and life advice.

I am sure you will enjoy this episode. Go for it!