Productboard’s Post

Product Management is actually incredibly simple. -Talk to people -Get what they will pay for shipped That’s it. Difficult to do but incredibly simple to understand. And the moment you get too far away from those philosophies is the moment you start shipping shit that people won’t pay for.

Product Management is not a function that is there to purposefully slow things down. They are there to help make sure the right things are being done at the right time. It is never a waste of time to make sure the engineers know why they are creating what they are doing. 

Product Management is about shipping products that users & customers love and that is viable to the business. Our users & customers likely have a solution for their JTBD. Your product must be significantly better than the alternative to entice customers to switch. Discovering a solution that meets this bar is incredibly difficult.   In our dynamic field, where the to-do list never ends, especially around delivery, it’s easy to lose sight of this. A significant portion of our time should be spent in discovering – talking with users, analyzing how our products are used, iterating, validating assumptions, etc. If not, you may risk focusing on output, when you should be focused on outcomes. #ProductManagement

Product management is mostly asking these questions over and over again: 1. What problem are we solving here? 2. Why should we solve it and why now? 3. What happens if we don't solve it? 4. How will we know it was worth solving it?

Product Management is not about the product. It’s not about the features or the technology. It’s about the PEOPLE who will use the product. The customer is the focus of any successful product management. That's why you need to: 1) Listen to your customers 2) Understand their problems 3) Solve their problems If you don't have a clear understanding of your customer's needs, how can you build a product that they will love? If you want to build great products, focus on the people who will use them. Not your tech stack. Not your design. Not your engineering team. Make it all about the people you’re building for.

Don’t overthink the perfect solution. In product management, waiting for the "perfect" solution can leave you stuck in place. The best ideas often come when you stop overanalyzing and start taking action, no matter how small that action may be, it could lead to something big. The most important thing is to start from wherever you can. It’s continuous action towards your goals that drives learning, progress, and growth. Testing, learning from mistakes, failing fast, and iterating based on real data beat overthinking every time. Think less, act more, and let momentum guide you forward.

Product management is effectively the art of balancing the business saying, "I need this now," and then asking why it's not exactly what they thought it would be when it's released. You have to balance speed of delivery and adoption. Value is not created simply by releasing it. It needs to both solve the problem and be adopted. Communication and alignment are key.

Real edge can be gained in Product Management by actually spending more time on the problem, than the solution. The key is to pin-point the exact user problem. This will help you design an efficient solution. Keep in mind that this an extremely simple and frankly, obvious principle but requires rigorousness to execute regularly.

Reading relevant books is one of the best ways to learn more about Product Management. If you are an aspiring Product Manager, these are the books you should definitely read.