An Introduction
Why you should subscribe to my drivel!
My Journey
I was fresh out of college, excited to be signed on to a permanent role at AAA where I had been interning the year prior. I was working with a great team making an impact on the lives of young drivers.
Mine was a marketing role. At least initially. Within a few months though, I had found pretty creative ways to solve a series of problems across departments and with little to no overhead. My boss started using a phrase with me: "All I have to do is present you with a problem to solve and give you time to think on it. I know you'll figure it out."
A Pattern Emerges
Six years later, after launching a slew of successful web-based products, I was contacted by a recruiter who got me my next gig. This time I was to support an app-development team with their implementation efforts across a large healthcare organization. Again, that job description didn't last long.
As I got more involved with the release cycle of the development teams, I found it difficult to communicate what features were coming next. We lacked a release manager and coordination across a growing number of teams with competing priorities became unbearable.
I asked my boss if I could help with the process and soon I was the official release manager. I developed an online hub of sorts using a non-linear note-taking app that helped me track our progress and collaborate with the various feature teams. Soon we were successfully running monthly releases and the teams were freed up to develop more features and faster.
My Lightbulb Moment
As I've continued my career, these one-off workflows and niche tool-building scenarios have become the norm for me. This has never struck me as unique or helpful until a recent conversation with one of my lead developers. This brilliant computer vision PhD and full-stack mobile developer looked me in the eyes and said, "I love how scrappy you are. No matter what problems or constraints we run into as a team, you always have a specialized tool or develop a unique workflow that perfectly fulfills our needs. You've made my life much easier!"
This was genuinely one of the most satisfying and humbling moments in my entire career. For one, his comments reflect one of the highest callings I see for myself as a PM - to support him and enable him to do his best work. That validation was pure magic for me on a personal level. Secondly, it made me wonder if I could help others through my "scrappy" approach. I can't do this in as direct a way as I do with my co-workers, but the thought eventually brought me here. To this post. To this newsletter. To this mission: I want to see more folks feeling enabled and empowered to solve problems for themselves AND their peers.
YOUR Lightbulb Moment...?
If you're wondering if this newsletter is for you, ask yourself:
Do you obsess over the latest productivity apps and yearn for a safe community to share the burden of your addiction with?
Do you like solving hard problems under great pressure and making your team look like rockstars?
Do you like cool shit???
If you said "yes" to any of the above then please subscribe - we're gonna have a ton of fun together.
If you said "no" to any of the above, that's ok. Denial is a normal part of the growth process and I'm here for you.
Zack Nolette