Little Fires Everywhere

Choosing which fires to fight as a Product Leader

Over the past few years my role has started to shift away from day-to-day PMing and more towards product leadership, recently taking on the exciting role of leading the Product Management team at my consultancy. Just as with the PM role itself, I’m finding prioritisation is key to success as a product leader.

As a PM, I could happily wax lyrical about prioritisation techniques, but here I want to focus on that shift from managing products to managing product managers - and specifically, how to prioritise when everything feels urgent, or on fire, everywhere you look.

The firefighting has shifted from prioritising bugs, stakeholder requests, and competing deadlines, to prioritising people development, client challenges, and more systemic issues.

The temptation is to grab the nearest extinguisher and try to put them all out, but you can’t. And if you try, you’ll burn yourself out. The real job isn’t firefighting — it’s deciding which fires matter most, and who should be responsible for tackling them.

Below is a toolkit of lenses I’ve found helpful in navigating this shift from managing products to managing product managers.

1. Strategic Prioritisation: The Pareto Principle

The Pareto principle (or the 80:20 rule) is the concept that roughly 80% of consequences come from 20% of causes. To put it another way, not all fires are created equal, a small number of them may be causing most of the pain.

As with the “vocal minority” in product management, I try and remind myself to look beyond just the loudest or most visible flames to identify: Which two or three fires, if solved, will make the biggest difference for the team and/or client? Maybe it’s unblocking a decision that’s paralysing progress. Maybe it’s helping a PM reset expectations with a senior stakeholder. Those are the fires worth focusing on, because they change the whole environment and often enable others to fight the rest themselves.

2. Risk & Consequences: Glass Balls vs. Bouncy Balls

This one was introduced to me by my wonderful colleague and fellow

Product Breaks

author

Ekaete Inyang

. In addition to understanding which 20% of problems will solve 80% of the pain, it’s also useful to remember that the impact of 'dropping’ problems varies. Leaving aside the fire metaphor for now...

Leadership, as with Product Management in general, is a juggling act: some balls are glass, others are bouncy.

Glass balls are things that can’t be dropped without real damage: a PM’s trust in their leader, a critical client relationship, or a fundamental process that keeps the whole team aligned. If those smash, the cracks take a long time to repair (if they can be at all).

Even if these aren’t “strategic” problems, you really don’t want to drop them if you can avoid it.

Bouncy balls are those which, even though they might feel painful to drop short term, aren't going to irreparably break when you do. The documentation that you’d promised someone you’d do by now but realistically could wait a week; the meeting that feels important but the outcome isn’t on a critical path and could be deferred.

Let them bounce. They’ll come back around when you have capacity, and no one’s world will end. Give yourself the space to keep hold of the glass ones.

3. Personal Discipline: Eating the Frog

“Eating the frog” means starting your day with the ugliest, hardest, most important task - the one you’re most likely to procrastinate on. I’m sure you’re delighted that I’ve decided to stretch my fire analogy to this one too...

In a world of constant fires, it’s easy to spend all day on quick wins and smaller flames, but the biggest impact comes from tackling the toughest issues head-on. Those fires don’t put themselves out, and avoiding them just lets them grow. Doing the hard thing first clears space for everything else to feel lighter.

For me, the hardest fire might be a tough 1:1 where I need to give feedback, or a client conversation about resetting expectations. Once it’s done, the rest of the day feels more manageable.

4. Delegation and Trust: You Don’t Need to Hold the Hose

Ok, last fire based analogy... (probably)

The biggest shift into leadership is realising you don’t have to be the one holding the hose. Your role is to make sure the right fires are being fought by the right people.

That means trusting your PMs — even if they tackle problems differently than you would. Delegation isn’t just about freeing up your own time. It’s about giving others the opportunity to grow under pressure, to develop their own style of problem-solving, and to see that they’re capable of handling the heat.

Yes, they might singe their eyebrows once or twice. That’s part of learning. The fire gets put out, and next time they’re faster, calmer, and more confident.

Closing Reflection

As a leader, it’s easy to feel responsible for every flame in sight. But leadership isn’t about dashing from one fire to another with a bucket of water. It’s about choosing deliberately: focus on the fires that change the system, protect the glass balls, fight your biggest fire first, and trust your people to handle the rest.

In other words, don’t aim to put out all the fires. Put out the right fires to create an environment where your team knows which remaining fires to fight and is set up to do it well.

p.s. nothing to do with Product Management but if you haven’t read Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng - it’s great!