{"id":5061,"date":"2017-10-26T17:31:20","date_gmt":"2017-10-26T16:31:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/?p=5061"},"modified":"2023-02-13T16:57:03","modified_gmt":"2023-02-13T16:57:03","slug":"internal-transparency-in-the-workplace","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.prodpad.com\/blog\/internal-transparency-in-the-workplace\/","title":{"rendered":"Five Effortless Ways To Introduce Internal Transparency Into Your Organization"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

You already know the importance of internal transparency. You’ve read about it on Inc<\/a>. \u00a0You’ve read those news features about Buffer investing in a culture of radical transparency<\/a>. But it all sounds like a lot of work you don’t have time or political capital<\/a> for right now. Besides, isn’t that a job for the CEO?

That’s what they want you to think.

Business transparency has always been framed\u00a0as a sweeping organizational initiative that requires leadership from the C-Suite<\/a>. But the truth is, it doesn’t take a lot of time or effort to introduce a culture of transparency into your company. In fact, you could start doing it today – and if you’re a product manager, maybe you should.

When you’re a product manager, much of your work comes down to coordinating quickly and effectively with other people. Without transparency, you’re running an operation that’s missing a lot of information.

When you can’t quickly communicate key information across teams – and this is what internal transparency really is – the people who work with you have to rely on partial knowledge to get their work done. That makes a frustrating experience for your colleagues, who don’t have access to the reasoning behind your product decisions.

More importantly, it forces you to take more responsibility than you need to.

Opening up your product management process to the wider company enables everyone to look up key business plans, access documents and details when they need them and support the goals and objectives you’ve set.

Plus, you know you’re doing something right when you’re helping your team get closer to the product and your users.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

5 steps to internal transparency<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

There are five steps – or levels – of internal transparency you can provide when you’re at a product company. From high-level strategy all the way down to customer feedback, you’re shifting the burden off yourself to keep your your colleagues – and empowering them to help themselves to the information they need to make good decisions.

You can introduce transparency at work starting today with documents you already have in ProdPad. Here’s how.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. Open up your product vision<\/h3>\n\n\n
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\"elon<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

You probably already know the value of sharing your product vision – but do you do it enough?\u00a0When it comes to product vision, it’s better to over-communicate than suffer through the consequences of not communicating it enough.

Our co-founder Janna Bastow once worked at a company where no one ever bothered to document a product vision. Then one day when the company sent a team out to recruit at a job fair, she and her coworkers could hardly keep their story together as they talked to potential hires.

One job-seeker even ended up asking her<\/a>:\u00a0\u201cAre you sure you’re all working on the same product? I talked to a few of you about what your product is about and everyone gave me a different answer!\u201d How embarrassing!\u00a0\ud83d\ude33

Though the product vision is the highest level of transparency you can provide, it\u00a0plays a really important part in how your coworkers understand their roles and the purpose of their work.

Marty Cagan of Silicon Valley Product Group points out<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When done well, the product vision is one of our most effective recruiting tools, and it serves to motivate the people on your teams to come to work every day.  Strong technology people are drawn to an inspiring vision; they want to work on something meaningful.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

If you already have a product vision, don’t be too shy to display it prominently in your office, to refresh everyone’s minds before planning meetings and to generally bring it up all the time. If they complain about it, tell them the people at ProdPad made you do it. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n\n\n

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2. Open up your product roadmap<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

There’s no point treating your product roadmap like it’s a state secret, although we know some companies that do. (Why!?)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Your roadmap is a prototype for your strategy.

THREAD \ud83d\udc47 pic.twitter.com\/rzgaqRE0YK<\/a><\/p>— Janna Bastow simplybastow.bsky.social (@simplybastow) September 29, 2017<\/a><\/blockquote>