How to succeed as a PM in a feature factory

Working in a feature factory can mean misery—or can be an opportunity to hone your execution skills

I work in a feature factory. It sucks and I wish I could leave.

I'm really struggling. I keep thinking that I should just resign myself to basically being an order taker for executing x features from my CEO.

—Reddit PM

This is often the life of a feature factory PM. Upset and feeling unsuccessful.

Interestingly enough, it’s not just PMs who feel this way in these environments. Product leaders often do, too.

I've put in my reps as both a PM and product leader in feature factories. And through trial and error (lots of error), I've learned some key lessons about how to succeed.

This is my guide to improving your happiness, succeeding, and setting yourself up for a better job down the line.

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Today’s Post

Words: 7,133 | Est. Reading Time: 33 mins

1. The Basics:

   • What are the (Subtle) Signs You (Might) Work in a Feature Factory?

   • What Drives Feature Factories to Exist?

   • Where did the Term Come From?

2. From Sadness to Success:

   • The Key Principles of Feature Factory PMing

   • Tactics: How to Influence Your Roadmap

   • The Art and Science of Execution

3. Advanced Techniques and Mental Game:

   • Most Common Mistakes in Feature Factories

   • Setting Up For Your Next Empowered Role

   • Product Management and the Art of Zen At Work

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1. The Basics

1.1 What are the (Subtle) Signs You (Might) Work in a Feature Factory?

Sometimes, it’s dead-clear that you’re in a feature factory. I’ve been there.

It’s when you’re:

1. Handed solutions, not problems

2. Delivery-focused, with very little discovery work

3. HiPPO’s (highest paid person’s opinion) drive the roadmap

But sometimes, you can sign up for an empowered environment. And then, 9 months later, you wake up and find yourself in a covert feature factory.

I’ve been there too:

1. PMs are held accountable for outcomes, but it’s window-dressing because outputs are dictated to them

2. The vast majority of discovery work is confirmatory, and very few HiPPO ideas are actually disregarded

3. HiPPO’s inevitably get their way, but more chaotically via product reviews and back-room conversations

It’s almost like “all routes lead to the feature factory.” Even if the three main principles aren’t violated, it can manifest in other ways:

• Culture of hand-offs: this is when sales & customer support share their requests, PM creates the roadmap and shares perfect PRDs, design creates the design, and engineering builds it. It’s modern waterfall or ‘departments as agencies’

• Constant re-organizations: this is another hidden form of control, where executives keep changing the charter in an effort to dictate what’s built

• Mismatch between planning and validation rigor: in this scenario, there appears to be planning science and principles. Problems and metrics are shared. But when it comes time to validate and discard HiPPO solutions, that never happens

Generally, the way things end up happening in these feature factories is: you have this heavy planning process, where teams share their ideas. But, in the end, it’s exec offsites, enforced through product reviews, that determines what folks really build.

Here’s your cheat sheet 1-pager to remember all that:

1.2 What Drives Feature Factories to Exist?

It’s easy to vilify the situation and blame “the execs” for a feature factory.

But having gotten closer and closer to the sources, I’ve realized a lot of different, relatable factors drive the feature factory:

1. Only PMs speak product lingo

2. Metrics aren’t hitting targets

3. Execs feel disconnected from the work that got them there

Let me explain.

Driver 1 - Only PMs speak product lingo

While PMs are well-versed in product lingo around feature factories and empowered product teams, other executives are not.

Centralized planning is just what feels natural. If you’re a head of marketing, or sales, what matter most is getting the solutions right. You don’t obsess over what problems to solve. You obsess over their solutions:

• CMOs obsess over big marketing play details, they don’t just hand them over

• CROs hop into conversations with big prospects, they don’t leave it to their team

So, when the product team is the only one using the language of problems and metrics, and no one else works that way, it sticks out like a sore thumb.

Product execs can’t really do that.

The result is: ways of working from other functions seep into product.

At an exec offsite, it plays quite badly if product has the least concrete plans. In fact, everyone prefers the most concrete plans from product—because they can do a better job at their job if they understand the future product.

This results in product leaders unwillingly falling into feature factory planning practices.

Once planning falls prey to the factory, the whole process continues in a waterfall fashion.

Driver 2 - Metrics aren’t hitting targets

Even if product leaders have gotten the team to believe in metrics and problems, instead of solutions, as they say:

Sh!t eventually hits the fan

It’s inevitable in product. Sometimes, you miss moving key metrics.

Or, as has happened to me more, another part of the business moves them. EG, Growth is focused on activation but core product or marketing tanks it.

There’s only so much “explaining” you can do as a leader.

Missing the metrics results in the CEO, and other C-level executives, getting themselves involved in the process. They want to give their own perspectives on how to move the missed metrics via product.

It’s nearly impossible to keep these people from thinking in problems instead of solutions. They’ll generally argue, “We’ve already identified the problem,” and they don’t want to empower the teams that are missing the metrics.

At that point, you begin to descend into the feature factory.

Driver 3 - Execs feel disconnected from the work that got them there

The third reason feature factories pop up is the Brian Chesky reason.

As he said in his interview with Lenny:

I started to feel disconnected from the work

These execs tend to have felt like they over-delegated.

This is especially true with founder-CEOs. Brian Chesky isn’t the only one skeptical of “empowered PMs.”

Here’s what Mark Zuckerberg had to say about delegation:

I don’t believe in delegating that much. The way a founder should work is get involved in as many things, and make as many decisions, as you can.

These types of people are in the ear of your C-suite, and drive the feature factory.

In a world where Airbnb, Brex, and Meta are seeing their CEOs get involved, other CEOs get motivated.

It’s usually not because of your VP of Product.

1.3 Where does the Term Come From?

From my vantage point, 3 people are most directly responsible for the popularity of the term, “feature factory:”

1. Marty Cagan, who talked about product management practices of the “best companies” in his book Inspired, which first published in 2008

2. John Cutler, who actually coined the term via several conference talks and articles from 2014-2016. He’s continued to write about it since

3. Melissa Perri, who published Escaping the Build Trap in 2018

All three sources are worth reading to get a better understanding of it. One of my favorites is John’s 2016 conference talk:

What’s my take on the whole thing?

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2. From Sadness to Success

2.1 The Key Principles of Feature Factory PMing

I agree with Marty, John, and Melissa. They’ve got the broad strokes right on the ‘what’ and ‘why.’ Where we might differ here or there is the ‘how.’

I suggest a more incremental approach:

Summarized, the game plan sounds straightforward, but the challenge is in the execution.