Think Big, Work Small
Read on my website / Read time: 6 minutes
One of the biggest lies we're told is that we can't have it all: fast, cheap, good - we can only pick two.
Turns out, this is actually BS.
As product managers, we're told we have to think in tradeoffs: scope vs. speed, customer need vs. business impact, innovation vs. iteration.
These are false choices. It's completely the wrong mindset for software product development.
Instead, we want to: Think big, work small.
In other words, think galactic, act atomic. Break down your "thing" into smaller steps that are reasonable and feasible to act on so that each step gets you closer to your goal.
At first glance, "think big, work small" might sound like a bumper sticker. But when you get it right, this approach drives clarity, focus, faster outcomes, and even stronger business cases for investment and credibility with executive stakeholders. It's just a matter of practice.
The key is to make sure that each small step demonstrates a tangible outcome. Doing so will generate momentum and more support for your idea over time as people can see tangible results along the way.
This is a major mindset shift that only few are able to really execute well.
Let's dig into what it actually means, and how to do it well.
4 Ways to Work
We can think big or think small. And we can work small or work big. Here's how they break down:
1. Think Big, Work Big
This is big picture vision with the promise of gold at the end of a long rainbow, but no incremental value. It's super risky.
PMs thinking of new products or major new initiatives are guilty of thinking and acting this way. They put in the effort to prepare a robust business case — user research, market scan, competitive overview, financial analysis — only to see their proposal rejected.
It's especially worse when they've heard the company declare its investing in innovation and long-term growth. The rejection leads them to blame and cynicism ("They're not true to their word" — i.e., "they suck") or self-doubt ("What's wrong with me?" — i.e., "I suck"), or both. Neither are true.
Think about it: you're asking the company to make a massive bet with no real guarantee of future payoff. (I don't care what your financial analysis says.)
It's easy to make that pitch when we don't have any real skin in the game. But if your financial future was on the line, would you make such a bet?
(And remember that the CFO may have an allergic reaction to what may be perceived as a CapEx spend or a major shift in OpEx.)
2. Think Small, Work Small
Classic among Agile newbies and zealots. No coherent bigger picture strategy. Small, scattered tasks leading to incremental, but insignificant progress with no real impact.
These PMs give up their agency. They rely on leadership to define and declare the big picture.
They get to the end of the year and are left with a nice pat on the back for their work, but nothing really to show for it. "I worked my butt off and delivered a bunch of stuff. Why aren't I getting the big salary bump and promotion?"
3. Think Small, Work Big
These are the over-engineers. There's no coherent bigger picture strategy driving the work. No concrete business criteria to help ruthlessly prioritize the work. No go-to-market plan to generate tangible market traction. Just large, unstructured efforts leading to massive work without a release in sight.
These are the PMs who enjoy the slowest career growth and whose jobs are most at risk.
4. Define Big, Work Small Poorly
They're great at breaking down big projects, but they do so tactically — they miss the strategic connection. They're all tactics, no strategy.
These are the PMs who often get the big complicated projects, but never seem to get promoted. Their incredibly valued because of their ability to deliver complex initiatives. But they most common feedback they get is, "You're not strategic enough." As a result, their employers mainly focus on doing just enough to retain them without promoting them.
These PMs think they deserve to get invited into the "room where it happens", but they're not.
Our goal is to Think Big, Work Small effectively. Maintain a clear, ambitious vision while executing through smaller, iterative, outcome-demonstrating steps.
What "Think Big, Work Small" Really Means
Thinking big means holding a clear, compelling product vision. It's customer-centered, business impacting, and ambitious. It might take a year, or several, to fully realize. But it gives your team a direction worth rallying around.
Working small means breaking that vision down into focused, incremental steps that can be delivered quickly, tested, and improved. This isn't about implementing agile development and running sprints. It's about go-to-market planning to generate market momentum.
When we combine the two, we avoid the common traps:
- Vision without progress → strategy theater.
- Execution without vision → wasted effort.
- Too big, too fast → risk without feedback.
"Think big, work small" is how we deliver meaningful things without waiting months or quarters or years to see if we're right.
The Business Case for Thinking Big, Working Small
This mindset doesn't just feel better to work in—it actually makes financial sense.
- Faster time to value.
Small, focused deliveries get value in the hands of customers sooner. That speeds up feedback and economic impact.
- Smarter resource allocation.
By slicing work into small pieces, we reduce the risk of investing in the wrong thing. We can validate or pivot earlier, before we've burned the budget.
- Compounding impact.
When each incremental delivery moves toward a clear strategic goal, those small bets add up. We're not just checking off tasks, we're building toward something that matters.
- Easier stakeholder buy-in.
It's much easier to get support for a series of targeted, measurable steps than a multi-month or multi-year moonshot. Each milestone becomes a proof point. This earns more trust and credibility over time toward the big budget ask.
Examples
Example 1: Reducing Customer Churn
- Vision: Reduce customer churn for your B2B SaaS product.
- 90-day goal: Reduce churn by 10% among at-risk accounts.
-
Strategic objectives:
- Increase onboarding completion rate.
- Improve engagement with core features.
- Proactively surface support for struggling accounts.
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Small bets:
- A guided onboarding checklist.
- In-app nudges for underused features.
- A “red flag” dashboard for CSMs.
Each one is small enough to ship, test, and improve quickly. Together, they build toward a larger outcome.
Example 2: Streamlining Workflow Adoption in an Enterprise Platform
- Vision: Become the system of record across large enterprise teams.
- 90-day goal: Increase weekly active usage among pilot enterprise accounts by 25%.
-
Strategic objectives:
- Reduce friction in first-time team setup.
- Improve visibility into team activity and progress.
- Make it easier for champions to onboard additional users.
-
Small bets:
- Create a pre-configured "starter workspace" with templates tailored to specific roles (e.g., marketing, finance).
- Add a team activity feed to highlight recent updates and encourage return visits.
- Enable power users to invite and permission teammates directly from shared dashboards.
Small bets that may seem minor individually, but compound toward the goal of deeper adoption. And importantly for enterprise, they also support the economic value story: increased usage = higher renewal and expansion likelihood.
Example 3: Improving Developer Experience for an API Product
- Vision: Become the easiest and fastest API for developers to integrate in your category.
- 90-day goal: Reduce time-to-first-successful API call from 10 minutes to 3 minutes.
-
Strategic objectives:
- Streamline onboarding and authentication.
- Improve documentation clarity and flow.
- Surface errors and troubleshooting tips more effectively.
-
Small bets:
- Replace API keys with magic link authentication for quick testing.
- Add inline code examples to every doc section.
- Show real-time error feedback and solutions in the developer console.
Even though the long-term vision is big (becoming best-in-class), these targeted improvements create value fast and help validate what matters most to your users.
Real-Life Example
We wanted to launch a brand new GenAI product in a market with large, entrenched players. Full product development with sales, marketing, and support would take well over 12 months, costing $$ millions. Very risky.
We were confident in the market opportunity. The broad financials looked good. But there were many unknowns:
- Competitive and differentiating features
- Performance and accuracy of the underlying ML model
- Data quality
- Product operating costs
- Platform scalability
- Pricing
- Sales model
- Market positioning and messaging
- Customer ROI
- Buyer and user friction
- Client implementation
- Support needs and staffing
It was a big bet. The company's future rested on the success of this product.
Our approach was to pursue it in meaningful milestones:
- Alpha/Pilot: Free co-development project with an innovator client
- Beta: Limited scoped projects with select clients leading to program expansions, test implementation and pricing.
- GA: General market availability with full commercialization.
Here's the roadmap:
At each phase, we had clear objectives and outcomes defined. Some of these were non-financial, such as customer proof points, testimonials, and case studies.
This market-based approach enabled us to:
- Prioritize feature development and scope.
- Direct development dollars to the must-have features at each phase.
- Test critical elements of our go-to-market model before making larger commercialization investments.
- Make adjustments as needed in the next iteration based on outcomes at each phase — in development, go-to-market, and budget.
- Gain customer goodwill and market momentum.
- Deliver incremental ROI over time.
- Generate propulsion for internal support and confidence.
How to Put it into Practice
Here's how to bring this mindset into your day-to-day work as a Product Manager — no frameworks required.
1. Start with a compelling vision
What's the big outcome you're aiming for? Not just in terms of features, but real customer and business value. Make sure your team understands it and is excited by it.
2. Set a bold short-term goal
What meaningful progress can you make in the next quarter? The next month? This should be a milestone that moves you toward your big vision, but is tangible enough to feel achievable.
This isn't just about features or an MVP. It's about what market validation progress you can demonstrate in the shortest amount of time.
3. Define 3–5 strategic objectives
What needs to be true for that short-term goal to happen? Think in terms of outcomes, not activities. Each one should be testable, valuable, and aligned to your vision.
Examples:
- A successful customer pilot implementation.
- Early customer testimonials and case studies.
- Price testing.
- Positioning and market messaging validation.
4. Break those down into small, measurable bets
What's the smallest slice of work that can move each objective forward? These should be tasks your team can deliver in days or weeks, not months or years.
5. Work backwards to sanity check
If we complete these tasks, do we meet the objectives? If we hit all the objectives, do we reach the 90-day goal? If we reach the goal, are we truly moving toward the vision?
This reverse-check ensures that every activity serves a purpose. No filler. No busywork.
Summary
"Think big, work small" isn't a productivity hack. It's a product strategy. It's a product go-to-market strategy. One that lets you move fast without losing sight of what matters.
It keeps your team focused. It minimizes waste. And it drives economic value by reducing risk, accelerating feedback, and enabling compounding returns on effort.
Big thinking is what sets great PMs apart. But small, focused execution is what gets results, and that's what sets the best PMs apart.
Fast, cheap, good—we don't have to choose just two.
We can have all three.
Think big. Work small.
