Early in my product management career, I genuinely believed that I could keep myself out of trouble by making sure that every step I took received perfunctory “approval” from somebody in a position of authority. Before finalizing my team’s quarterly roadmap, I would make sure to present it in a meeting to company leadership. And before turning design mocks into working software, I would send those mocks to any stakeholders who I thought might be particularly opinionated about the look and feel of our product.
