Survive the “7 Killers of Product Managers”!

As any Product Manager dedicated to the journey, I like to read up on PM methods and musings to stay on track for continuous improvement.

This is where I came across a Quora answer by David Marks listing 7 reasons why pms fail. As I decided to look into the reasons he lists I found that I could add value by laying out how to equip and protect yourself against these traps.

Here’s my list of product manager killers, in order of fatalities:

1) Lack of understanding of the target market. You need someone who understands the target market, or who can pick it up quickly and aggressively by getting out of the office and into that market.

One of the fundamentals, understanding the market as close to the problem you’re trying to solve is key. Don’t go for hearsay, anecdotes or fall for the Salesman’s (or -woman’s) mantra “let me tell you what our customers really need”.

Whatever problem you’re looking to solve, get in contact with the people that face the issue on a frequent bases and have the most pain.

You can achieve this by scheduling customer interviews where you focus on understanding his situation through open ended questions.

One method (although not for the faint of heart) is to man the phone support line. This is where you’ll face your customers’ frustration firsthand.

Also, depending on your products, you might want to become the customer yourself. From inquiring about the product through the sales process and during usage and maintenance.

2) Lack of setting a high enough bar for quality. Shipping crap so flawed that you can’t tell if the market sucks or if customers just hate your product specifically.

This is where your first customer contacts from (1) come into play. Try to foster relationships with motivated and innovative customers. You can (selectively) bounce ideas off them and see how you could help them solve the problems. If you have a first prototype they are also the ones you’ll want to call up to have a first go at your new solution. They can help you learn fast without much exposure to the general market which might dismiss the product at its current stage.

Another way to ensure quality (especially if your product is very confidential) is to have internal lead users for your product. But view their input just as ideas. If they say the product still sucks, be ready to launch it anyway if you feel it’s already right.

3) Lack of ownership of the product.

Waiting for someone else to intervene to fix the product, business model, or road map. Product manager = CEO of product.

This is where I would respectfully disagree — at least with the wording. The product manager is not the CEO of anything because he lacks the formal executive power.

But like in the analogy of the CEO, a product manager is responsible for the success of her business. It consists of creating and marketing a business model. So, an offering which is made available to the market and generates revenues with a sustainable margin.

As a PM you’ll actually think a lot like a CEO: Zooming out on the big picture, orchestrating an armada of stakeholders and deliver on a guiding mission.

4) Lack of design skills, or ability to manage designers to deliver a great experience. Few product managers are great designers, sadly. (why is this?) But all need to make sure the final product is top notch.

A great user experience is often what sets a product apart from its competitors. As a PM I would argue that it’s not your job to deliver mockups and detailed customer journeys. But you need to know how to spot valuable (vs. bad) design. You’ll also need to know how designers think and work to get to great UX results.

In my early years as PM I benefitted from working closely through customer interactions with the designers. I also took them to customer sites to understand the customer pains in real life.

Also, it probably won’t hurt if you know the basics of design language, good design practices and typical web design mechanisms.

5) Failure to keep it simple.

Always keep in mind why your product even exists. Make sure you nail it down to the major job-to-be-done and focus on that.

Often times you’ll see your colleagues/boss/yourself extending the scope to include “that one really cool idea”. But scope creep can be deadly, especially if you don’t notice it and in a year’s time wonder why you still haven’t delivered a first product to market.

But even when your product just serves the one main purpose it can be hard to put into simple terms what it actually does. This is where you can use one of many “simplification” methods.

One of my favourites comes from programming: rubber duck debugging

That’s where you place a rubber duck on your desk and try to explain your code line by line or your product’s key feature in extremely simple terms. Plus, it tends to get a good laugh out of your colleagues…

6) Lack of understanding the technology capabilities. I think this is where non-technical product managers are weakest: they don’t know what is possible and can’t propose an easier way of getting something done.

I don’t believe there is any shortcut to learning the basics of technology. My ambition is always to know at least enough to be able to ask questions that make sense.

Of course that depends on your field of expertise but I found it a good idea to learn the basics of programming and electric hardware design. Plus, you might want to look for industry references at trade shows or the web to see how they use available technology.

If you’re unsure where to begin, try to get a few of the engineers talk you through their days or the big problems they’re solving. And if you are critical whether the technological solution the team has chosen is the best way, you can trigger an external tech review by industry experts.

7) Poor communication skills. You have to convince customers to trust you, and your own team to work hard for you to deliver a great product. That takes great communication and passion.

Invest time in building the product’s mission and key values and spend time to preach to your company about it. Also be sure to invest time in people and offer value to them by being reliable and open to look over their action items with them.

And of course, always aim for clear, concise and fact based communication. Be sure to have your designer pals look through a presentation you intend to give to a wide audience.

Daniel Sontag connects the bots: As Industry 4.0 lead and manager for connected products, he does what he loves — tying business to tech, and theory to practice.

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