“Ambiguity” means it’s not clear what to do. That’s the default state of most markets and most companies. There are an infinite set of things that the company *could* do. What you need to figure out, as a PM, is what *should* the company do.
Translating “could” to “should” is one of the most important parts of being a PM. If you do this well, then your team and your customers are shielded from the randomizing effects of ambiguity. This makes them more productive, because instead of constantly worrying about what to do or constantly task-switching between multiple different possibilities, they can just execute their jobs with the confidence that you’re leading them in the right direction.
Psst, here’s a PM secret: the “right direction” doesn’t have to be perfect. Simply avoiding randomizing context-switches is valuable in itself. A company that pivots over and over again before finding the perfect solution will often get beaten by a competitor that picks a “good enough” solution and stays focused to execute it. This is especially true if the PM is humble enough and astute enough to quickly change course if the “good enough” solution isn’t really good enough.
“Scrappy” means being able to execute a plan in the face of limited resources, limited time, and the usual headwinds that make building tech products difficult. It means figuring out creative ways to do more with less. It means making tough trade-offs that may make you want to hold your nose but that won’t actually hurt you in the marketplace. It means motivating and cajoling team-mates, customers, press, partners, etc. to help you achieve product goals— and make them glad to help. And it means not complaining about how hard things are. Things are always hard. Scrappy PMs can figure out how to get it done anyways.
Scrappy means that you figure out a way to make the answer “yes we can” not “no we can’t”. Even if the final product is a little sloppy. Even if some customers don’t agree with the tradeoffs you made.
What these two concepts have in common is avoiding an unhealthy obsession with perfection. Good PMs reduce ambiguity for everyone around them by doing their homework and picking a Good Enough solution, not a perfect one. Scrappy PMs then deliver that solution by making smart tradeoffs to get the product shipped, even if the product or the process wasn’t perfect.