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What makes a good product manager?
To answer this commonly asked question, we decided to turn to the experts β thought leaders of the product management world. If anyone knows what makes a good product manager, itβs them.
The advice we collected spans the skills, mindsets, and even specific hacks that product managers need to excel at their jobs.
Without further ado, here are their thoughts.
β Product is about customers, business objectives, and technology β
Marty Cagan is the founder of theΒ Silicon Valley Product Group. At productboard, we refer to him as the βfather of tech product management.β His book,Β Inspired, considered a bible of sorts in the product management world, is required reading for our team.
When Marty was beginning his foray into the product world, the following equation was used to explain the question βwhat is a productβ:Β
Product = Customer X Business X Technology
What does the equation mean? A successful tech product must solve for the customer, the business,Β andΒ technology. To break this down in more detail, a good product manager not only needs to focus on solving customer problems, they must also understand how a product advances the business objectives of a company as well as how their technical decisions impact the workflow of cross-functional teams.Β
βSo donβt let anyone try to tell you itβs all about the business, or itβs all about the customer, or itβs all about the technology.Β Product is harder than that. Itβs all about all three.β
β Earn stakeholder buy-in by showing your work β
Teresa TorresΒ is a product discovery coach, helping teams to drive product outcomes that benefit their overall business.Β
Product managers work hard to get to the βright answer,β represented byΒ backlogs full of user stories and roadmapsΒ full of features and release dates. However, these βright answersβ are often met with pushback from stakeholders, resulting in frustration for PMs.
To prevent this, Teresa believesΒ product managers must learn how ideate with stakeholders and show their work along the way. When the entire PM process is transparent β not just outputs β buy-in becomes a much easier task.Β
βWhat we donβt realize is that we are creating this stakeholder problem ourselves. When we only present the right answers β the backlogs full of user stories and roadmaps full of features and release dates β we are asking our stakeholders to give us their opinions on those outputs. And more often than not, they are going to have their own opinions about what you should build. They arenβt going to be aligned with your opinions because you havenβt shown your work. You havenβt shown why these outputs matter.β
β Focus on the experience of everyday users β
Until recently,Β April UnderwoodΒ was Chief Product Officer at Slack. She now focuses her time on #Angels, an investment group for female-led companies.
Slack is hailed as a product that its users actually find delightful β something that is uncommon in the B2B world. Traditionally, enterprise software is purchased by higher-level employees who donβt actually use the product themselves. Because of this, day-to-day user experience is often overlooked by B2B product developers.
Slack has been spearheading the change of this paradigm. April explains that the Slack team takes cues from B2C companies that strongly emphasize the user experience.Β
βIf you look at a lot of folks on our product, design and engineering teams, we have a lot of DNA here that comes from the consumer side. In the consumer world, you have to build software that is delightful and useful enough that people decide to use it. You have to earn every user one-by-one. In enterprise, historically those decisions donβt get made by the people who use the software day-to-dayβ¦The usefulness of the platform has historically been an afterthought. But these days thatβs much less the case.β
In this day and age, itβs important to create a product that considers the needs of everyday users β whether you are a B2B or B2C company. Product managers take note.
β Product managers should get involved in product positioning β
Sachin RekhiΒ founded several startups before finding himself working as Director of Product at LinkedIn. Heβs now the founder of an app called Notejoy.
Positioning is the frame of reference of which customers use to evaluate your product and make product decisions. While positioning is usually seen as the marketing teamβs domain, SachinΒ suggests that product teamsΒ should also take part.
βPositioning is in reality a business strategy exercise and thus product managers need to be deeply involved as effective positioning ultimately defines critical elements of your entire product strategy.β
A great product can end up failing due to poor positioning alone. Product managers must get involved to prevent this from happening.
β Avoid development purely led by sales β
Rich MironovΒ has coached hundreds of tech companies on how to build better products and improve their product teamβs workflow.Β
From his rich (ha!) experience, Rich warns about the dangers of spending too much time building for individual customers, often a result of pressure from the sales team. TheΒ end resultΒ can be frustration, uninspiring products, falling profitability, and an inability to grow the business.
Instead, Rich advises this:
βGive product managers wide latitude to push back on the βeveryone wants thisβ arguments from executives and sales teams. In return, ask for market measures of demand (for upcoming features) and adoption (for shipped features).β
β For beginner PMs, curiosity beats technical knowledge β
Product leaderΒ Ellen ChisaΒ is currently working on a project called Dark, which makes it easier to build backend web services. She is a vocal advocate for moreΒ diversity in the product management field.Β
Despite being fairly technical herself, Ellen is a firm believer that curiosity is more important than actually having technical knowledge.
βI donβt think it matters how far down the βtechnicalβ line you are when you start. I think it matters how curious you are about the technical things. That curiosity will continue to drive you down the line. Someday, youβll hit whatever place weβve defined as βtechnicalβ β or at the least youβll hit the place you need to do your job well.β
In other words, you can become a good product manager without needing to know code. But, you need to be interested in learning and developing your skills if you want to succeed.
β Overcome the βfeature factoryβ through open, cross-functional conversations β
John CutlerΒ is a Product Evangelist at Amplitude and a well-known voice in the product management world.
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John frequently warns product managers and SaaS companies about the dangers of becoming a βfeature factory.β A βfeature factoryβ means that product teams are focused on outputs over outcomes, and have focused their priorities and attention entirely to shipping features for the sake of shipping features.
To overcome the βfeature factory,β John emphasizes the importance of building an environment of psychological safety that empowers product teams and encourages innovation. He also recommends that product teams familiarize themselves with their companyβs mission viaΒ open, cross-functional conversations:
βArrange a meeting with your companyβs CFO and/or CEO. Have them explain the moving parts in the business model, and the assumptions that underpin forecasts and growth targets. How do you really make money, and what must remain true for you to continue to make money? What costs matter now? Why are sales goals what they are? Where does product performance fit into the big picture?β
Conversations like these help teams build products that actually advance business goals and solve customer problems rather than getting caught up in the dreaded βfeature factory.β
β Ruthlessly prioritize β
Brandon ChuΒ is currently VP of product at Shopify. He is also the founder ofΒ Black Box of PM, one of theΒ best PM blogsΒ around that shines much-needed light on the discipline.Β
Brandon believes that all high-functioning product teams must master the art of prioritization. βNot once a month, not once a week β but rigorously, and ruthlessly.β
βIn my experience, the craft of making prioritization decisions is one of the most difficult skills to impart on teams because of how complex those decisions can become, and while itβs usually a core responsibility of product managers, Iβve found that the best teams are the ones where everyone is maniacally prioritizing towards the same goal, and doing so in a way thatβs consistent with each other.β
Only when product teams get prioritization right will they deliver the most value to customers. Read Brandon Chuβs full framework for better prioritizationΒ here.Β
β Donβt try to achieve all your goals at once, focus on the most important ones β
Fidji warns that there are so many possibilities in the tech world that itβs easy to chase after every single one of them. The result is a product full of features that donβt really fit together.
βItβs so easy, no matter how experienced and talented you are, to end up with βFrankenstein productsβ because youβre trying to achieve all the goals at once, without a clear sense of whatβs most important.β
To find focus, Fidji asks the following questions to both herself and her team:
See her full framework for staying focused on the right product goalsΒ here.
β Talk to your customers. Actually, become obsessed with them β
Hiten Shah, serial entrepreneur and prominent voice in product management, is obsessed with his customers. When developing new products, this means that he talks to them often and directly.Β
Hiten is notorious in the product community for his proactive approach to discovering customer pain points prior to building anything. For his startup Crazy Egg,Β Hiten conducted 51 interviews in 7 days. For FYI, his latest venture,Β he built an MVP in five days. The customer learnings saved him months to years of time, depending on how you look at it.Β
So, what is he looking for in these conversations and interactions?
βIβm looking for pain, looking at what problems people say they have, and then Iβm also looking for stories (the why) that connect it all together. Stories translate into emotion. What motivates a personβs behavior? What causes them to take action? I want to hear about failures and how people solved them; I want those moments when people were motivated to start solving a problem and stopped.β
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Weβd love to hear from you! What are your product management tips and tricks? What do you think makes a good product manager? Let us know in the comments below!Β
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