Street sweeper or CEO?

How to be successful as a new Product Manager

Being a Product Manager is difficult. It’s difficult not necessarily because you are asked to do difficult things, but because you’re not exactly sure what it is that you are asked to do.

Many big words float around you as a PM, such as “be the CEO of your product”, “own the product vision”, “be the bridge between sales and R&D” — but what does it all mean? R&D build products, Sales people sign deals but as a product manager what do you need to do? and what will make you successful in your job? Having worked as a Product Manager in several companies, I must admit this question frequently troubled me (and still does), especially at times when I started to work on a new product. Beginnings usually have a lot of uncertainty in them, and unless you are building something completely from scratch (in which case you are lucky :) ), chances are you know less about the product than anyone currently involved in it — how are you supposed to have a vision about something you don’t know much about? The below points are actions and attitudes I have found most useful when taking on a new product management job:

• Be humble. if I had to give one piece of advice this would be it. If you realize anyone related to the product knows something you don’t, then you’re already off to a good start.
• Be a shrink. Meet as many people possible involved in the product — preferably face to face — and ask them what bothers them. Insist on the smallest things and the big things. Write all those things down and see what’s recurring, what’s bringing a lot of pain, what’s easy to fix and what’s difficult. Start working on the ones that cause a lot of pain but are very easy to fix. Be careful not to ignore them — sometimes something can appear so trivial and easy to change that you forget about it just because it is so insignificant to you. In one case one of the first things I did as a new product manager was adding a tooltip somewhere because a few people complained something was confusing.
  When you do that, the credibility and future cooperation you earn will make things a lot easier for you in the future.
• Be a customer service agent. This is slightly related to the point above, but people will often complain to you about stuff that is broken. Try to imitate a good customer service provider you have encountered in the past. Try to help people with their problems, and if you can’t, explain to them why. By fixing things you learn how things work. You understand the impact of bugs and you learn to identify pitfalls in planning new features.
• Assume everybody is doing their best. I believe this is a good attitude in general but especially when you start fresh. Assume people are working hard, and that people do care even if it doesn’t seem like it. Many parts of the puzzle are missing when you start and the big picture is unclear. Don’t rush people to meet deadlines or show disappointment from slow progress; instead try to understand what is holding them back. Sometimes the most tiny feature could be really difficult to implement. Or sometimes getting some basic information from a client can really get complicated. You never know, and unless you have the full picture it’s better to assume people are trying hard.
• Be an archivist. You always learn new things about the product, especially in the beginning but also years after. Especially in those cases where you dig a lot to find an answer to a question — make sure to document what you’ve learned and make it accessible to others. If you think it’s too trivial then you could say you are preparing training material for new hires, but chances are if it took you a long time to find an answer, this information is not easily accessible to everybody. This way you will create value before even launching a new feature and you will do a big favor to the people around you.
• Be a street sweeper. Instead of thinking of yourself as the CEO of your product , think of yourself as the street sweeper of your product neighborhood. As a street sweeper when you see some mess along your way you can’t ignore it and pretend you didn’t see it because your job is to make sure the streets are clean. As you get to learn more about your product you will notice things that do not work properly. If it’s nobody’s problem then it’s your problem — add it to your backlog of issues to fix.

When you start adopting these attitudes at some point things begin to change. Instead of being the helpdesk of your product getting many requests from everyone around you, you start being the origin for new ideas, you make new things happen. All of a sudden you really understand what is difficult for the developers to do and what’s easy, so you can better prioritize. You understand better what challenges the sales people are facing so you have better ideas on how to solve them. You realize there is more to the product than just developers, sales and clients, you’re suddenly exposed to legal, finance, purchasing issues , etc. You are switching from an influx mode to an outflux one. You start having your own “product vision”.

So if you are wondering how to become the CEO of your new product, start as the street sweeper — it’s the closest thing that will get you there.