Product Managers: Stop “gathering requirements”

How to give your customers a 5-star dining experience, not a $1.99 cheeseburger

It really pisses me off when I hear Product Managers describe their job along the lines of “I gather requirements from the customers and build into the product”. It paints the picture of a fast-food clerk endlessly customizing the burger order of every picky patron to walk through their doors.

Instead, Product Managers should act more like sommeliers. The sommelier is the expert on wine and knows all of the right questions to ask a customer–even the wildly inexperienced or annoyingly particular ones–in order to make a recommendation that delights them. Typically, the sommelier plays a strong role in determining what wines their establishment will order.

Do you see how that’s different than the cashier at a take-out joint? When a Product Manager gathers requirements, they’re showing all their cards. They’re not providing any of their knowledge or expertise to the customer, and they’re forfeiting their own power. And sometimes, maybe that’s not even what the customer really wants.

You see, customers pay a lot of money for your software because they want a great experience, and they understand that even though the customer is always right, their software…