The differences

Peacetime PM writes vision docs about where the industry is heading and dream use cases for 5 years out. Wartime PM focuses on near-term execution since their company might not be here in 6 months.

Peacetime PM thinks other competitive products are complements that will grow their market. Wartime PM suspects every product is a substitute that will steal her users.

Peacetime PM reads TechCrunch all day looking for companies to buy. Wartime PM skims Techmeme every other day to watch their back.

Peacetime PM avoids conflict and lets ideas percolate throughout the organization over months. Wartime PM embraces disagreement and pulls everyone into a conference room to make a decision that afternoon.

Peacetime PM hates to ever take top-down direction. Wartime PM relishes clarity of focus, even if it comes from someone else’s idea.

Peacetime PM runs a 41-way multi-variate test to find the perfect shade of blue for links. Wartime PM trusts her designer and knows there are bigger hills to climb.

Peacetime PM creates dashboards and runs experiments to improve feature-level vanity metrics. Wartime PM optimizes for top-level active users.

Peacetime PM wants development to work like a waterfall: write a spec, get designs, build it, test it. Wartime PM tries to parallelize everything.

Peacetime PM writes 25-page comprehensive specs. Wartime PM writes 3-page specs that addresses non-obvious issues and contentious questions.

Peacetime PM encourages teammates to take a month to explore far-fetched ideas. Wartime PM keeps her team focused on speed to shipping.

Peacetime PM trades time to launch for expanded scope. Wartime PM can’t afford the time or extra complexity from scope creep.

Peacetime PM thinks it’s always worth adding extra polish to a release. Wartime PM understands what the minimum acceptable quality bar is.

Peacetime PM asks UX research to do a 3 month, 25 person diary study. Wartime PM asks UX research for relevant findings from past studies and for an 8-person, hour-long cognitive walkthrough to validate an idea.

Peacetime PM builds complex Excel models. Wartime PM uses napkins.

Peacetime PM thinks building a feature 5% of people will use is worth doing. Wartime PM focuses on only the features 80% of people will use.

Peacetime PM likes a comfortable pace. Wartime PM knows that’s a temporary luxury.