Connect Work to Impact Using Goal Metrics

The Impact First approach to product management focuses on aligning team work directly with business-critical outcomes, especially crucial in an era of frequent product team layoffs.

The Low Impact PM Death Spiral

Many product teams fall into a dangerous cycle:

• Teams take on low-impact work (small features, cosmetic improvements) because:
  • It invites less scrutiny
  • It's easier to execute
  • It's less likely to "break" important things
  • Executives can see the work visibly happening
• Over time, this creates compounding problems:
  • Products become collections of loosely connected features rather than cohesive experiences
  • The organization adds layers of program management to handle dependencies
  • Building anything meaningful becomes increasingly difficult
  • Teams go deeper into low-impact work because high-impact work becomes harder
• This continues until the next round of layoffs

Three Steps to Become an Impact First Product Team

1. Set Team Goals Close to Company Goals

• Keep goals no more than one step away from company goals
• Don't let goals get "cascaded into oblivion" through multiple layers
• Use a simple formula: one "why" statement or one mathematical operator should connect your team goal to the company goal
• Examples:
  • "Convert X single-product users to multi-product users" (which directly translates to revenue via known customer lifetime value)
  • "Increase team profits from £20M to £100M in the next financial year"

2. Keep Impact First at Every Step

• Don't just set impact-focused goals and then forget them
• Maintain focus on impact throughout OKRs, strategy development, and execution
• Avoid getting lost in intermediate processes and frameworks
• Constantly ask: "How does this connect back to our company-level goals?"
• Visualize progress toward the goal (e.g., draw a timeline with current state and target)

3. Connect Every Bit of Work Back to Impact

• When prioritizing, estimate impact in the same unit of measure as your goals
• Replace abstract scoring systems (like 1-10 impact ratings) with concrete estimates
• For each potential project, ask: "How many users could this convert?" or "How much revenue could this generate?"
• This forces honest conversations about whether work will truly contribute to goals

Practical Application

• The CEO Test: "If you were the CEO of this company, would you fully fund your own team?"

  • Most teams can't confidently answer this question immediately
  • If you can't answer confidently, you need to change your approach

• Handling Executive Requests:

  • Don't simply say "yes" or "no" to requests that don't align with impact
  • Present options with trade-offs and a recommendation
  • Help stakeholders understand the impact implications: "If we do this, our impact projection will need to be adjusted by X"

• Reframing Constraints as Opportunities:

  • See business constraints (regulation, quarterly targets, B2B focus) as guides that shape your work
  • These constraints apply to competitors too - mastering them creates advantage
  • Work with, not against, the commercial realities of your business

The ultimate message: No excuses. Even as an individual contributor PM, you can and should align your work to business-critical outcomes, regardless of how your organization approaches product development.