Good Product Manager Bad Product Manager, Revisited

Any Job post for a Product Manager usually has a long list of responsibilities attached to it. These are what make a good Product Manager according to the company in question. However, being a good Product Manager goes way beyond the responsibilities attached to the job and plays very close to an individual who takes their job seriously.

A “good Product Manager” title is actually pretty hard thing to achieve, and most people actually fail to be good and are instead bad. This is because it is a highly leveraged position and a bad Product Manager leads to many other dire consequences.

For example, with a wrong product being built, impacts the company’s morale, revenue, and reputation. There are some principles that a Product Manager should follow to increase their chances of being good, which we shall look at, at the end of this review.

Here are a few points that distinguish a good Product Manager from a bad one:

The Role

A Good Product Manager

Should play a critical role in the “Success of the product.” This is essentially why you were chosen to lead the– to develop and define the product successfully, thus increasing the company’s profitability. A successful product shows the impact you have contributed to the organization. One of the criteria considered when choosing a Product Manager is their track record or the number of successful products they have in their portfolio.

A Bad Product Manager

Will define a narrow role in product development, refer to themselves as a marketing resource, or someone who writes datasheets, press releases, and gets customer’s feedback. They will allow most of their time to get sucked up in other duties within the organization. They have many excuses, such as the engineering manager is incompetent or that other companies have ten times more engineers. They will also claim to be overworked and without enough direction. Once they fails, they will say that they had already predicted the failure.

Important Factors

A Good Product Manager

Should balance all the essential factors that are under consideration. As the CEOs of the Products, they must understand a wide variety of information that affects the strategy and execution of the product.

The main factors in this case include:

• The company’s goals and capabilities
• The customer’s demands
• The competition

A Bad Product Manager

Mostly misses the big picture and the small but essential factors within the department. They may even build a great product, but in a market, their company is not operating in. They may also make a product that takes too long to pay off. They ask customers leading questions and only get biased answers. They go on their own and confirm that the information is accurate.

Communication

A Good Product Manager

Should be a great communicator. They should clearly define the requirements of the product and in writing. They must ensure that the team understands the direction of the product development at all times. They must give as much information as possible on what the product should do and how fast it should do it. They never forget critical information, and even when they err on the side of clarity, they are more than willing to explain themselves till they are understood.

A Bad Product Manager

Is a poor communicator, and even when they have a terrible feeling concerning a particular aspect of the product, they tend to leave it murky. They worry about specifying each feature in detail and assume that they know more about solving a problem and how the product should behave or be produced.

They put off the hard decisions till the end of the cycle, and they write PRDs assuming that the engineers understand them. They also do not have time to update the PRDs, yet they tell no one to do it on their behalf.

They change engineering priorities based on customer feedback, and they never go through the defined process. They ignore input and requests from the team.

Conclusion

In conclusion, it is essential to look at some principles that good Product Managers should follow. This is because companies whose sole job is product creation have a lot to do, and for each product, there is a lifecycle.

Now, for these lifecycles to be profitable to the companies, considerations must be put in place. Product Managers who want success must always be vigilant in their efforts to do the best thing for their companies and their products. Here are a few principles;

• Always remember the customer’s needs
• Always keep track of your competitors
• Always focus on the data
• Always dedicate yourself to the quality of the products.

All the best!