MirroR on The wall (Part 1 of 4)
MirroR on The wall: Snapshots from reality, a simple story with simple language that might simulate some of our daily moments in general, but it is more targeted towards product managers in the tech scene.
Disclaimer: Fictional story.
The story (Part 1)
Summer 2017, Suzan, left her work early to go for a walk and prepare herself for the weekend. Suzan is 56 years old, she works at a reputed bank, in the marketing department. Suzan is married to Ibra and they both have a 18 years old son and 16 years old daughter.
While coming back home a mirror in an antique store caught her attention, she decided immediately to get a closer look, she leaves the store carrying the mirror.
She walks home, head downstairs to the basement, put the mirror there and 🏃♀ upstairs to get ready for the dinner.
Aysha: Mom where have you been? 👀
Suzan: Hey honey, I was putting something in the basement. How was your day?
Aysha is the 16 years old daughter, she loves art and practice painting.
Aysha: Ah cool.. my day was good, just finished working on my project for today… 🙂
Talal: What project? 🤔
Talal, is the son, he is studying physics in the university and spend a lot of time playing video games.
Ibra: Get the table ready guys, dinner in 20 minutes 🔊
Ibra left work early to prepare the dinner, he works on his own startup.
Dinner Table
Aysha: let’s do something different this weekend, let’s go out! 🏃♀
Talal: Let’s go to the woods 🌳
Ibra: Hmm… I am out, I want to chill, I had a long week and I don’t want to do anything… 😫
Suzan: Well … tomorrow… I want to hang on the mirror I bought, come help me, it’s going to be fun 😻
Ibra: What mirror? Don’t we have enough mirrors at home?! 🤔
Suzan: How was your day honey?
Ibra: It was long! 😥
Suzan: Mine was a lot of work too, left work early today and went for a walk, and on my way home I found a beautiful mirror 😍
Suzan: How about we work on our little project this weekend?
Everyone: Our project? 🤔
Ibra: Work on what? it’s just a mirror on the wall, what’s so hard about it?
Aysha: Mom… where do you want to put it?
Suzan: Aysha you are going to love it! 😍
Talal: Where do you want to put it? 😅
Suzan: It’s a big mirror, I don’t know where I want to put it 😅
Ibra: How big? and why do you buy something that you don’t know where you want to put it or use even, we have a lot of mirrors 😠
Suzan: I don’t know just big enough 😐
Talal: Why so big mom? 🤔
Suzan: I don’t know, it felt right to me! 🤔
Aysha: How about the living room? 🦍
The living room
Suzan: Here next to the window, somewhere in the middle, or maybe to the right, somewhere here.
Ibra: Why did you buy it again? 🤔
Suzan: I don’t know it, I liked it, it reminded me of something.. 💚
Ibra: You said it is big, is it heavy too?
Suzan: Yeah IT IS heavy.. 😓
Suzan: Why does it matter?! 😠
Talal: It matters mom, it changes the calculations, where to drill, what to drill with, what screw to use, what anchor to… so yeah mom it does matter 😘
Ibra: My son 👌
Suzan: Okay…. how about you both go downstairs and get it?
Ibra and Talal 🏃
Lesson 1: Know how heavy it is.
The moral of part one is to shed some light on how synergy is established in a cross functional team in any company.
A way to establish senergy is to go through multiple mixed stages:
1- Discovery: How Suzana bought a new mirror and presented the idea to the family.
2- Argument: How the family inquired about the reason to buy a mirror in the first place.
3- Initial idea: Putting the mirror in the living room
4- Agreement: Asking questions.
Know how heavy it is: is the first sign of buying in.