“Am I a Good PM Partner?” and Other Questions I Asked This Week

In a couple hours, I’ll be logging onto Zoom to give a talk on product partnerships, over 150 people are expected to join.

And here’s what I probably won’t say out loud on the call:

I’m not nervous about forgetting the slides.
I’m nervous because the real insights don’t live in the deck.

They live in the messy, unpolished, totally human moments we deal with every day.

The ones where:

• You pause a meeting that’s spiraling.

• You admit you’re stuck so someone else can too.

• You soften a hard truth just enough to keep trust intact.

Prepping for this talk made me realize how much of good partnership is invisible so in this issue, I’m sharing five behind-the-scenes truths that shaped my thinking this week: what I’ll be talking about, what I left out, and what I’m still figuring out.

Let’s get into it 👇

💡 The Real Partnership Move

You don’t need to have the best idea in the room.
You do need to notice when the room is talking past itself.

Last week, I sat in a meeting where tension was quietly building.
Everyone was speaking clearly, but no one was really connecting.

So I said:

Turns out, we weren’t.

Engineering was worried about scalability.
Design wanted to push delight.
I was tracking timelines.

All valid. All different.
The most useful thing I did that day? Naming the disconnect.

🛠 Building the Plane While Flying It

At fast-moving companies, “we don’t have a process for that yet” is basically the background music.

But I’ve learned:

• Process gaps aren’t failures, they’re invitations

• Confusion is a team sport

• Good teams build clarity in micro-moments

Instead of asking, “Why don’t we have a system for this?”
Try: “What’s the smallest thing we can align on today?”

🛬 It’s scrappy. But it’s how planes stay in the air.

💬 The Skills They Don’t Teach You

The most valuable skills I’ve learned as a PM partner aren’t in any framework.

Like:

• Reading the “👍” that actually means “no, but I don’t have time to think about this anymore”

• Creating space for someone to say the hard thing later

• Saying “I don’t know” and meaning it, with curiosity, not fear

Partnership isn’t about having the answers.
It’s about making honesty feel safe.

🎤 What I Meant to Say in the Talk

You know the best partnership moments?
They’re not impressive. They’re inconvenient.

They happen when:

• Your roadmap catches engineering off guard

• A “quick sync” becomes an hour-long debate

• You have to tell a stakeholder their favorite idea didn’t make the cut

Those moments are uncomfortable.
But they’re where trust is built.

✅ Post-Talk Reflections (That I’m Already Thinking About)

Someone asked me: “How do I know if I’m being a good partner?”

Here’s how I answered, and how I check in with myself, too:

You’re probably doing okay if:

• People bring you problems before they explode

• Your eng partner challenges you (in the best way)

• You’ve had an awkward convo that cleared the air

• Someone trusted you with something they haven’t told other PMs

You might want to gut-check if:

• You’re the last to know when something goes wrong

• Everyone says “yes,” but nothing really moves

• You haven’t asked “what’s not working?” in a while

✨ Great partnerships aren’t smooth. They’re honest.

👀 Food for Thought:

Here are a few questions I’m bringing into the talk, and maybe into your inbox too:

• What’s one partnership moment I’m proud of that no one saw?

• When was the last time I hit pause to realign a room?

• Am I listening more than I’m talking in my 1:1s?

💬 Let’s Chat

What’s your version of the “pause the room” moment?
Or the partnership skill you had to learn the hard way?

Hit reply! I’d love to hear from you.

And if this resonated, feel free to send it to a PM friend who’s deep in the Slack threads this week. They might need a reminder that they’re doing better than they think.

Wish me luck,
Stefanie