Mountain basics for product teams

I spend a lot of time in the mountains, and one thing I’ve learned is how rarely a day falls apart because of something big.

It’s usually the smaller things that stack up. Slow transitions or gear not where you thought it was. Someone digging through their pack while everyone else is standing there getting cold. None of it feels like a big deal in the moment, but by the end of the day, you start to notice.

You can usually see it most during the transition periods. Gear on. Gear off. Crampons out. Packs open. Ropes on. Ropes off. That’s where I find the time disappears. I find the teams that move well are not necessarily stronger or faster, they just look more put together. Everyone knows where their stuff is, what comes next, and no one is standing there asking where their other glove went.

I’ve started noticing the same patterns on product teams.

I think a lot of teams think their biggest problem is strategy. That’s mostly true, but more often it’s how the work actually moves in those in-between moments. You'll see it during team handoffs, reviews, and parts where a decision almost happens, but then doesn’t.

I’ve been in design reviews where the work was solid, everyone generally agreed, and somehow we still spent 30 minutes circling because a piece of context was missing. No one was to blame, but no one could quite land it either. You leave the meeting thinking you made progress, and then realize later that nothing actually moved along. It’s not that dramatic, but it slows things down.

Another place you’ll find this shows up a lot is how attached people get to ‘the plan’.

In the mountains, you can start a day with a clear objective, good weather, and everything lined up… then suddenly something changes. The conditions are off, timing slips, someone’s moving slower than expected. But the teams who have the best days are usually the ones who adjust frequently and keep moving.

There’s always someone who wants to stick to the original plan no matter what. That rarely ends well for a group. The exact same dynamic plays out in product work, too. You spend weeks aligning on a roadmap, and once things start moving it becomes weirdly hard to change direction, even when it’s obvious something isn’t working. You end up putting more energy into defending the plan than improving the outcome.

Ultimately, I think the key for all of this is preparation.

You can tell pretty quickly at the trailhead who is and isn’t ready. It’s not in a big way, but with the small things. Packs are organized. No one is repacking at the last minute. No one is borrowing gear they forgot. It makes the start of the day feel easy and prepared.

There’s a direct connection for design teams. You see it in how designers show up to conversations. Whether they have a point of view or whether they understand the problem enough to move things forward instead of figuring it out in real time with everyone watching.

None of this needs to be perfect, but it changes the dynamics. None of this is complicated, but it’s usually where things break down. It’s not the big ideas. It’s not the strategy decks. Just the basics done inconsistently.

The teams that feel good to work on are not doing anything flashy. They just move well together. There’s less stopping and starting, fewer resets, and decisions actually happen. It sounds simple, but it takes constant team effort to get right.

Strategy can get you to the trailhead, but it’s the transitions that actually get you to the summit.