There’s a quiet catastrophe occurring in product organizations proper now. Corporations are hiring armies of individuals with “product supervisor” on their enterprise playing cards, however they’re treating them like challenge administration with higher vocabulary.
Frankly I see it loads with enterprise shoppers. Groups are drowning in tactical selections they usually’re optimizing for exercise over outcomes.
The outcome is just not splendid: Merchandise that ship on time however clear up all of the unsuitable issues. Roadmaps filled with options no person requested for. Groups that may execute however haven’t any clue why they’re constructing what they’re constructing.
THE PROJECT MANAGER TRAP
That is what most corporations get unsuitable: They rent product managers to handle timelines, coordinate stakeholders, and shepherd options by means of improvement. Mainly, they need glorified challenge managers who can communicate startup.
However that’s not what product administration is. Product administration is about making strategic selections underneath uncertainty. It’s about understanding customers so deeply you’ll be able to anticipate their wants. It’s about saying no to good concepts so you’ll be able to say sure to nice ones.
Challenge managers ask, “How will we construct this sooner?” Product managers ask, “Ought to we construct this in any respect?”
WHAT REAL PRODUCT MANAGEMENT LOOKS LIKE
Within the workshops we run with C-suite leaders, this subject comes up continually. What separates nice product managers from the remainder? Three issues maintain developing:
- Curiosity over compliance. The perfect product managers don’t simply execute no matter roadmap is handed to them. They query assumptions, dig into person conduct, and push again when the plan doesn’t make sense. Curiosity is without doubt one of the high traits we rent for, by the way in which.
- Buyer obsession over characteristic factories. Nice product managers spend extra time with customers than stakeholders. They will let you know not simply what options clients need, however why they need them and what occurs once they don’t get them. There’ll by no means be a alternative for direct dialog with customers.
- Strategic considering over job administration. Challenge managers concentrate on the how and when. Product managers obsess over the what and why. They’re continually asking: “What downside are we truly fixing? Is that this the fitting downside?”
A SIMPLE HIRING TEST
Wish to know when you’re hiring a very product-focused particular person? As an alternative of asking candidates to stroll by means of their course of, ask them to defend a choice the place they killed a characteristic everybody else needed to construct.
Nice candidates will gentle up. They’ll let you know concerning the time they mentioned no to the CEO’s pet challenge as a result of the information didn’t help it. Or once they bravely pivoted the roadmap primarily based on an actual dialog with an actual person.
Weak candidates will battle with this. They’ll most likely discuss round stakeholder alignment and supply timelines as a result of it’s what they’re centered on.
THE STRATEGIC DIFFERENCE
Corporations that get it proper perceive that product administration is a strategic operate, not an operational one. Product managers needs to be considering three steps forward, not three sprints forward.
They need to be the individuals who can stroll right into a room stuffed with executives and say, “I do know we deliberate to construct X, however after speaking to customers, I feel we must always construct Y as an alternative,” and have the conviction to again it up.
That requires a very completely different talent set than managing Jira tickets and giving progress or standing updates in Slack.
A BETTER PATH FORWARD
Corporations critical about product excellence have to rethink how they rent for the product administration craft. Cease optimizing for individuals who can run environment friendly conferences and begin on the lookout for individuals who could make onerous selections with incomplete data. As a result of right here’s the factor: In a time the place everybody can ship rapidly (accelerated by the Bolts and Loveables of the world), aggressive benefit comes from transport the proper issues.
George Brooks is CEO and founding father of Crema.
