Helpful tips for technology product leaders

This is a living article and contains extracts from my own experience.

Just starting product management function or hiring product managers alone will not transform an organization to a product org. There should be a top down approach with strong commitment from senior management about the change for superior and faster results.

Keeping mind open to observe customer problems, and converting them into an opportunity by solving to the level of immediate customer delight should be the first key objective of a product manager.

One side of entrepreneurship or product leadership demands to be judgemental and opinionated; the other side to be open for validation and course correction by learning (by shipping)

As we move into leadership roles (or grow up in hierarchy), we often tend (or situation may force us) to move quickly towards solution before clearly understanding the problem. The tendency might have percolated from the need to beat competition or meeting customer/management expectations. Above this, if you are surrounded by a system that encourages faster responses, then there is a high probability that you are not solving the right problem or the problem right. The results of this may appear sooner than expected.

In the quest for completing things on time, never ignore to acknowledge the current situation, progress made so far and the difficulty in completing things on time (especially in design works).

Focus more on the product, and the potential outcome it can derive instead of focusing more on team/individuals about their areas of improvement, weakness or limitations. There is no perfect team. Product is the testimony of the team.

Product leader should see what is possible with new ideas instead of protecting them.

Listening with the intent to learn (or understand) rather to reply can be really helpful to grow in profession and as a person.

At times the best way to respond is not responding at all. Difficult to practice though.

Don’t assume simple feature or simple change to existing feature is going to be simple too in development. Sometimes it requires overhaul of the existing design and data model.

Disruption is our friend in the current information age. Get used to uncertainty.