The Practitioner’s Guide To Product Management (Top 5 Things Learn/Hard Way)

Sometimes this lack of knowledge is readily apparent. There was a startup called Splashpower operating out of the office next to ours when I was at Zeus that was a pioneer in wireless charging pads that would recharge the batteries of mobile phones and similar devices placed upon them. In a possibly unwise move, without consulting the engineering team, its marketing team boldly claimed that the company would soon be able to produce a room-sized charging pad that could charge devices while they were still in people’s pockets. Had they bothered to check with engineering first, they’d have established that a charging device of this size and power would essentially microwave the occupants of the room.

There’s a reason why this pitch fell flat: features don’t resonate with the buyer, only benefits do.

Before accepting any product manager job offer, ask yourself the following questions:
» Does the product excite me?
» Does the market seem intriguing?
» Do I click with the people I’ll be working with?

’s important to keep in mind that people drive the process, not the other way around. Even if you start with a textbook implementation of a particular framework or set of best practices, it’s inevitable and important that you tailor the process to suit the needs of your market, company, and product and continue to adapt, evolve, and improve it as you go along. It

A product manager’s role is essentially about providing three things: context, perspective, and vision. The context is a portrait of the real people in the market who have a particular problem or need, and describes the environment in which they experience it. That might be when they’re out walking their dog, working at their office, or driving in their car. Perspective provides an honest appraisal of how effectively the organization and its product are going about solving those problems. Possibly most important, vision is used to motivate and align everyone involved in creating a product by describing the product’s potential.