The one question that saves product careers | Matt LeMay

LeMay asks teams to consider whether they could explain the value of their work from the company's perspective. The question is a way to inspect purpose and contribution, not a guarantee of job security. An unclear answer can identify a need to revisit the team's goals or scope.

He says the product manager should help the whole team think about contribution. Keeping that perspective as the product manager's private responsibility misses other people's knowledge. Engineers, designers and researchers can all help identify a meaningful outcome.

LeMay describes product management through a value exchange between the business and its customers, crediting Melissa Perri. The form depends on the business and its setting. Learn what both sides receive rather than assuming every company wants the same result.

He notes that relevant information can exist in leadership communication while teams remain disconnected from it in daily work. Review what success means for this business now. A familiar product practice is not a substitute for understanding the actual direction.

LeMay recommends goals no more than one step away from company goals, crediting Christina Wodtke. His concern is that repeated cascading can obscure the relationship. A team should be able to explain its contribution without a long chain of assumed effects.

He points out that each intermediate goal can contain an assumption about how it contributes upward. Inspect those links instead of assuming all local progress adds up. A measurable local improvement still needs a credible connection to the larger objective.

LeMay warns against focusing on getting a goal-setting framework perfectly formatted while losing sight of why the work matters. The purpose of the method is to guide useful work. Evaluate whether the goals communicate contribution, not merely whether the deck follows a template.