I’m writing about one hundred things I’ve learned as a product manager.
One of the many personal challenges I’ve faced in my working life was to overcome my natural tendency towards being erratic. I’m not talking about endearing (to me at least) eccentricities, more about practical things such as a rubbish memory for dates and poor time management. Throw in a crisis and I could generally be found running around with my head on fire.
A good friend and colleague recently left our firm to take on a more senior product management role elsewhere. His boss and his boss’s boss stood next to him and gave him a glowing and sincere send-off, striking that good balance between “we’re sad to see you leave” and “go out, excel and make us proud”.
It reminds me about how much of being a product manager boils down to how we conduct ourselves and how we relate to others. Even if your product becomes a runaway success, you’ll still be remembered unfavourably if you got there by annoying everyone on the way. Similarly, “nice guy, but completely ineffectual” would not be a great legacy either.
So have a think now about how others will respond to the way you act and how you go about your task of achieving success for your products. This is what will determine how you’ll be remembered.
Does your sales team sell your products (like, in exchange for money), or does it give them away as generous sweeteners to guarantee the sale of something else that will hit their targets? Or to put it in another way, does your sales force truly understand the value of your products and can it articulate the benefits to the customer?
Everyone but the most tirelessly (and tiresome) self-motivated has at one point or another procrastinated in the face of some worthy activity. I think I’ve found a way to use procrastination for profit and gain; read on to see whether I have…
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As a product manager, how do you know you’re doing your job well?
Depending on your personal motivations you may want to know for your own satisfaction, to give your boss evidence at your next pay review, or to give your resumé some teeth for your next job. This article outlines the problem with traditional metrics for product managers and offers some better alternatives for measuring success: communication, ideas, roadmapping, launch and end-of-life.
