The Not-Sexy Work Pays Off

The reality: Some of the most important product work isn't exciting. Inventory management. Admin tools. Data integrity. Infrastructure. Foundation work.

The temptation: Skip to the AI features. Build the impressive stuff. Do the work that looks good in demos.

The truth: Teams that skip foundation work either build impressive things that don't work in production, or they spend years paying down the technical debt from shortcuts.

How to stay motivated:

• •Remember that foundation work enables everything else
• •Track the value even when it's not sexy (dollar amounts, efficiency gains)
• •Communicate the future vision while doing the current work
• •Find the interesting problems even in "boring" features

The maturity: Junior PMs want to work on exciting features. Senior PMs know that sometimes the most valuable work is unglamorous. They do it anyway.