One of my managers used to tell me my superpower was prioritization. He told me he had never seen a product manager who could so naturally make prioritization decisions. He was impressed by my ability to make decisions based on changing circumstances in the moment, with a team of people looking to me for direction.

He loved watching me make the decision and then take ownership of them. Thus allowing the team to move forward without worrying about getting blamed if anything went wrong. The team moved more quickly and tested and learned at an accelerated rate, thanks to this superpower.

Natural prioritization is essential for a product manager's on-the-job success, but it is a massive drawback during product management interviews where they want a formal structure. In reality, PMs rarely make prioritization decisions that matter with a strictly structured grid. Yes, for quarterly planning, we create a list with a few structured reasons.

But day to day, we react in the moment based on instinct. A PM makes most prioritization decisions on the fly, constantly throughout the day. That instinct balances user needs, cost, and effort, as well as politics and team strengths. Many small things run through a PMs mind when they prioritize; it isn’t just frequency or severity (buzzwords we have to use to play the interview game).

Exploring Theories

Ever since my manager pointed out this superpower, I have struggled to figure out why he is right. Why am I so much better than the average? I developed a few theories: childhood poverty and an (untitled) learning disability consistently float to the top.

When I was a kid, we had very little money (think not even two quarters to dry our clothes - hence many years wearing a pair of jeans with a hole in the pocket from the time my mom tried to dry my jeans in the oven because we ran out of money). I learned, even as a young child, maybe even as a toddler, not to ask for things. I had to prioritize my asks because few were going to get granted.

Then there is the ‘learning disability’ with no name, or at least they didn’t have one back then. I suspect it is some combination of mild dyslexia, ADHA, trauma from verbal abuse, and no one identifying my poor eyesight until 4th grade. Because of these factors, I had to learn tricks to keep up with everyone else. Before and after the problem was identified, I had to compensate for many vaguely identified issues and prioritize where and how I focused my efforts to learn.

Journalism to the Rescue

Then today, I was reading an article on Google’s new AI product to help journalists write stories. I found myself wondering what aspects of journalist writing can quickly be learned. And then it hit me; that is probably one of the vital reasons I can prioritize so quickly and naturally. In journalism school, I learned to write articles with the most critical information at the top. When writing a news story, you constantly decide what fact goes first vs last. You do this at the word, fact, and paragraph levels. That is why in a good news piece, all the fluff or color is towards the bottom.

And that is what a strong product manager does; they prioritize what the team works on, how it is communicated, what is expressed, and when it is shared.

Ultimately, I am unsure which life experience had the most significant impact on my prioritization skill set, a childhood that required it more than the norm or the college education that taught me to write like a journalist. Even if journalism wasn’t the secret to my success, it is a great model for product managers to emulate in their communication with stakeholders. Tell the most essential facts upfront.