I have been thinking about this so much lately and comparing it to what I have done and accomplished. I am so proud of my career thus far and I am excited about the next level but I think it is important to think about my failures and how to adjust, as well as where I have succeeded and focus on doing more of those things. So with that in mind, here are the things I think make a great Product Manager.
Focus on the end-user
When I am building a road map, I think it always important to focus on the end-user. Some times this is an internal user and some times it is a customer. Whoever it is, this is the most important part. Always ask: How are they using the product? Is this intuitive? Does this solve their problem/ make life easier?
Think big!
I have another post coming about this, but it is important to THINK BIG. If you want to be an indispensable team member then making small iterations are not going to work. You have to bring big ideas and bring them regularly. The other post will dive into getting into this mindset but keep this bullet in mind when developing your ideas. Big ideas that have big impacts.
Be brutal with prioritization
Be ready to prioritize and use data. There is no way to do all your ideas and if you are constantly thinking big, you should have a lot of them. So how do you decide which ones to move forward with and in what order? Use data to prioritize. If you have set strong KPI’s on previous releases then you will get better and better at seeing the impact of new features or developments and being able to predict their velocity. Use this to prioritize and be brutal with it. The biggest impact items stay and everything else moves down the list.
Build relationships with everyone
It is hard to build relationships while you are brutally prioritizing, which means telling people their ideas are not impactful enough. So you need to build a little political currency. You need to build rapport and gain their trust that you know what you are talking about. This takes time and being able to get more people in your corner will help you move projects along faster and will make you a better product manager.
Follow-through
If you say you are going to do something, do it. This seems like an easy one but how many times have you been annoyed by someone who said they would do something for you and didn’t? Not only does it drive you crazy, but you also don’t go to that person anymore for anything. You have blown the trust. Don’t worry though, you don’t have to say yes to everything. Remember, you are working on brutally prioritizing so don’t be afraid to say, “no I can’t do that, but I could circle back next week?” Just make sure you actually circle back.
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