Why Your Timelines Sound Like Promises
#HowIPM - Bi-Weekly Product Management Tips and Tricks · 2026-04-01 · 2 min
Substance score
13 / 100
Five dimensions, 20 points each
What our scoring noted
Our reviewer’s read on each dimension, with quotes from the episode.
Insight Density
The entire two-minute episode delivers exactly one tip—use hedged language like 'planning to release' instead of 'will release'—which most working PMs already know intuitively. The intro consumes valuable time with personal filler and the single idea is never deepened or extended.
I'm a thinker, a learner, and a truly terrible chef. I also watch more football than any man in the universe
one of the biggest tips that I've learned, sometimes the hard way is to not use the phrase it's going to be released tomorrow
Originality
Hedging estimates and framing releases as plans rather than promises is well-established PM communication advice found in virtually every introductory PM resource; there is no contrarian angle, no first-principles reasoning, and no fresh framing offered.
There's such a subtle difference between that and we're planning on releasing it tomorrow that it took me quite a long time to realize that was the case
you need to explain we're aiming to go live tomorrow
Guest Caliber
The host provides zero professional credentials—no company, no seniority level, no scale of product experience—introducing himself only through personal trivia, making it impossible to assess whether the advice comes from meaningful practitioner depth.
I'm Adam. I'm a thinker, a learner, and a truly terrible chef. I also watch more football than any man in the universe and this is how I pm
Specificity & Evidence
There are no named companies, no real metrics, no timelines with actual data, and no concrete case studies; the only 'examples' are vague hypotheticals like a developer getting hit by a bus or a management offsite cancelling a release.
Management could have had an off site and decide that's not needed anymore. Your developer is the only one with the login, the keys, you know, the releasing hump. He could get run by a bus
Conversational Craft
This is an unstructured solo monologue with no interviewer, no follow-up questions, and no pushback; the delivery is loose and colloquial with no sharpening of the core idea through dialogue or challenge.
SA.
you really need to lean on your estimates, your team, and give a confidence level. And I'll make sure my team give me their confidence level so that I can report it on all be well, it should be next week
Conversation analysis
Computed from the transcript - who did the talking, and the verbal tics along the way.
Filler words
Episode notes
A single phrase in how product managers communicate release dates determines whether stakeholders hear an estimate or a commitment. The distinction is subtle enough that most PMs do not catch it until trust has already taken a hit. Adam Race, Head of Product at ITV, shares the phrasing shift that changed how he communicates every timeline. He explains why the default language creates an invisible promise, and how confidence levels give stakeholders a productive way to hear uncertainty. Adam has spent more than a decade in product leadership across ITV, DAZN, and Chelsea FC, managing releases where engineering, editorial, and commercial teams all depend on the same dates. This episode is one of a handful available outside the membership. The rest of the How I PM series is available inside The Product Way. Join The Product Way for the full collection, plus PM Select, our service matching product managers with hiring managers:
Full transcript
2 minTranscribed and scored by The B2B Podcast Index.
I'm Adam. I'm a thinker, a learner, and a truly terrible chef. I also watch more football than any man in the universe and this is how I pm. For me, one of the biggest tips that I've learned, sometimes the hard way is to not use the phrase it's going to be released tomorrow. There's such a subtle difference between that and we're planning on releasing it tomorrow that it took me quite a long time to realize that was the case. I could have personally signed off the ticket. QA said it's fine, it's been checked into git. I've seen it myself. We could put it on staging, but there still is a reason why it might not go live tomorrow. But if you can communicate to your stakeholders, look, even though it should go live tomorrow, it may not happen because there are like a myriad of reasons. Management could have had an off site and decide that's not needed anymore. Your developer is the only one with the login, the keys, you know, the releasing hump. He could get run by a bus. So you need to explain we're aiming to go live tomorrow. And the same thing is when you're projecting data, it should hopefully be by the end of next week. You really need to lean on your estimates, your team, and give a confidence level. And I'll make sure my team give me their confidence level so that I can report it on all be well, it should be next week. Don't say it's definitely going live next week because as we are all aware, it's not always the case. SA.