Of all of the teams that Product Managers must deal with on a regular basis, I really can’t think of any that have a worse reputation amongst our kin than Sales teams. Common tropes that I hear when talking about Sales teams with other Product Managers include things like “they don’t understand the product” or “they […]
How Much Technology Does a PM Really Need to Know?
It seems to be a pretty common question in the PM world these days — just how technical does a Product Manager really have to be? And what baseline amount of technical knowledge and/or skill does at PM really need to have in order to be successful. Many development teams will tell you that they want […]
Becoming a HiPPO Hunter
This is the second in an ongoing series of blog posts originally published on the UserVoice Product Management blog. There’s no Product Manager alive who hasn’t spent time dreading a HiPPO attack; the sudden derailing of well-laid plans by a management or executive-level stakeholder who insisted that their direction was the right one simply because it was […]
Solving the Mystery of Latent Customer Needs
The single most powerful tool that Product Managers have to make products that amaze and delight their users is to figure out what problems their customers have that they don’t even realize are causing them pain. Most people didn’t understand the benefits of 1,000 songs in their pocket when Apple first introduced the iPod back in […]
Yes, You Really ARE That Good!
One of the aspects of Product Management that can be really hard for people to internalize and adjust to is just how thankless the job can be at times. When things are going badly, the Product Manager is almost always the first person to shoulder the blame — your requirements weren’t clear, the strategy wasn’t […]
Curiosity NEVER Killed the PM
One of the primary predictors of successful Product Managers that I’ve seen in my time is the amount of curiosity that they are willing to express in their work and in their lives. This makes a lot of sense when you think about it, given that Product Management is all about having a broad swath […]
Improving Your Relationship With Sales & Marketing
The relationship between Product Management and the Sales and Marketing teams in some companies can be unnecessarily strained. Often, this shows itself in such counter-productive behaviors as sales reps making promises to prospects or renewing clients based on their own interpretation of the roadmap, or the marketing teams creating collateral that materially misstates the capabilities […]
How to Minimize Workplace Disruptions With One Easy Trick
How often do we as Product Managers complain that we’re constantly bombarded with all sorts of distractions as we try to do our jobs on a daily basis? What if I told you that there’s one clever trick that you can use to minimize those disruptions and secure more time to focus on doing your […]