The 3 Things Every Great Product Manager Knows
As someone who works alongside Product Managers regularly through my consulting, I’ve come to observe a certain mindset embodied by all-star managers that leads to more aligned teams and better work. It’s not always present, but when it is, you can see the positive impact ripple across touchpoints. So, if you’ve already got the mechanics of Product Management down, how do you take your work – and your results – to the next level?
This isn’t just about checking off a punch-list of job responsibilities (I assume you’re already doing that). It’s about the intangibles. A set of behaviors. The connective tissue that elevates someone from good to great.
When Product Managers embody these three habits, they see a shift in their ability to lead, as well as the effectiveness of the products they build.
You understand that 60%-70% of the job is relationship management
I referenced these numbers during a client conversation recently and they were shocked. The immediate response is always, “so when are they supposed to do their ‘REAL’ work!?” But a great Product Manager should empower their agile team to get granular while they can focus on what matters. And a big chunk of what matters is relationship management. Why? Because cultivating relationships across functions and teams ensures that you’re collectively building something everyone is invested in.
Far too often, Product Managers are pulled in different directions by teams who just want to see their own pet priorities pushed forward. When you execute without nurturing long-term relationships, your role becomes transactional and fragmented rather than strategic. And relationship management is inherent in the job. Think about when you’re doing cross-product planning or prioritization. It’s your job to foster constant and open communication. It’s your job to listen to cross-team needs and inputs. When this happens, everyone feels excited by the roadmap and energized by the work because it’s representative of inputs from across the organization.
You can move from input to synthesis to action
A key component to successfully rallying teams around the work is making sure you’ve collected a diverse mix of inputs. The de facto source of insights is often from the customer, but stopping there stops your product short. You need inputs from IT to build something that’s technically sound. You need inputs from business leaders to create a product that’s feasible, and so on.
Great Product Managers make sure they have a diversity of inputs in order to inform a well-rounded synthesis. And this part is key, because I know it’s easy to get caught in the trap of waiting for more data (“I just need one more month of insights! One more week of customer interviews!”): the art of good Product Management lies in being able to absorb information, ideas, needs and problems, then knowing when you’ve got enough detail to act. If you only take in information and never get to synthesis and action, you’re always going to stall out.
You know how to leverage an Idea Backlog
When you listen to people and nurture relationships, you naturally end up with a lot of ideas. This is where so many Product Managers freeze up. So, how do you avoid the paralysis that can result from having a lot of great ideas to choose from? Leverage an Idea Backlog. This is different from your Product Backlog, which houses ideas that you already know you’ll tackle. Rather, the Idea Backlog becomes a holding cell for ideas you want to capture and/or defer to later because 1). they aren’t a top priority at present, or 2). you need discovery or research before you know if or how to proceed. In other words, the Product Backlog is what you should and will build, the Idea Backlog is what you could build.
When there are a lot of competing forces, having a method for separating “right now” ideas from “not now” ideas is critical to any prioritization process. Use tools like Product Board, Aha!, Trello, or good ol’ fashioned sticky notes to house this information. And absolutely get into the practice of regularly reviewing and evaluating the ideas against the priorities that have been set for the product. You never know when an idea might be ready to move from “could” to “should.”
There are plenty of guides, trainings, frameworks and checklists available for product managers to get better at their jobs. But these “intangibles” are often markers of great product people. because they demonstrate the acumen required to put those activities to use in furthering the product strategy.