What would you tell your younger self? Starting out in product management can be overwhelming, especially when faced with the complexities of balancing customer needs, market demands, and internal challenges. If you could go back and give yourself some key advice, what would it be? What would have made those early years a little smoother? Here’s a couple of points that came to mind, when we chatted to each other:
Spend Time Understanding What Customers Truly Want
It may sound obvious, but it’s the core of successful product management. Spend serious time getting to the heart of your customers’ needs. Surveys, interviews, observation—all of it. Don’t just listen to what they’re saying; dig deeper to uncover what they really need. Without this, even the best ideas may fail. Prioritizing customer insights is crucial to building products that resonate with the market.
Work on a Product in a Fast-Growing Market
It might sound a bit cynical, but if you’re working in a booming industry, your product will likely look successful, even if you’re still figuring things out behind the scenes. Growth can mask a lot of hiccups, and there’s no denying it’s a nice confidence boost. That said, don’t get too comfortable—long-term success requires more than just riding the wave!
As a bonus, here’s a few additional thoughts:
Seniority Doesn’t Always Mean Being Right
Just because someone holds a higher position doesn’t mean their perspective is automatically correct. Don’t be afraid to respectfully challenge opinions or offer a different perspective. Sometimes the best insights come from fresh eyes.
Invest in Training
Yes, we’re biased (it’s why we started Product Focus), but training is essential. Knowing how to do product management is one thing, but having the soft skills to navigate tough conversations, influence decisions, and get buy-in is just as important. Don’t underestimate the power of continuous learning.
What advice would you add for new or aspiring product managers? Share your thoughts in the comments below!
Join the conversation - 11 replies
Be ruthless in questioning the business reasons on why you should launch a product and don’t take your seniors opinion on it as gospel.
1) Don’t be afraid to go ‘all in’ to transform a platform or architecture even when others are resisting the change. If it makes commercial sense, write down the reasons why it makes sense and influence, influence, influence…
2) Don’t measure time to market by your own ambitions nor the ability of the developers. Time to market is really the customer adoption time. Beta everything early and don’t make promises you don’t need to make.
1, Don’t refresh a product just because it’s there, find out if it’s still needed.
2, Innovate, don’t replicate.
1. Stick to the strategic priorities of the business and market not the whims of managers.
Then when implementing the strategy…
2. If you haven’t had time to check the detail yet, don’t let it happen.
make sure you understand who your competitors are and what their USPs are.
Then…
Don’t let internal people convince you what the customer wants, get out the office and find out yourself.
1) Don’t make too advanced/detailed plans and hold on to them too rigidly as someone/something inevitably will come along and divert things before you’re half-way there.
2) When this ‘change of plans’ happens, just embrace it, be flexible and take out a new direction while keeping the overriding objectives in mind.
1. Everyone has an opinion if you need to make a decision stick to the facts and what the actual requirements are
2. If you have a real strong gut feel about something then go with that, 99% of the time its right….
A little extra one…. don’t get emotionally attached to something
1. Always ask the question ‘so what?’ from the customer’s perspective. If you can’t answer it with something substantial/valuable, then question what it is that you’re actually doing.
2. Stop making excuses – spend more time in front of your customers, it will provide you will INVALUABLE insight!
1) Build in flexibility as requirements WILL change – before or after launch.
2) Keep it as simple as possible. Don’t over-engineer. It’s simpler and MUCH less expensive to change or improve a manual process than an automated one.
1. your opinion, while interesting, is irrelevant
2. perfect your “so what?” test… keep asking why until the truth comes out
I’ve spent most of my career in very large shops, which strongly influences my responses (that are probably related):
1. Understand ALL your critical stakeholders well; the customer is probably not the only one who will determine your success
2. Understand how your product’s vision and goals support broader visions and goals, e.g., at the corporate level, and articulate that linkage well