What’s Expected from Great Product Managers?
Four key areas in which product managers must excel to succeed
By its very nature, the role of a product manager is ambiguous and vague.
In some companies, product managers drive the vision and the strategy of their products. In other companies, they’re confined to project facilitation. Sometimes they’re referred to as program managers, product marketers, product owners, or sometimes in small companies, executives.
Given the ambiguity of the role, setting proper and clear expectations with your product managers is key to their success and to the success of the company.
I’ve seen good product managers falter when expectations aren’t set and communicated properly.
“The quality of our expectations determines the quality of our actions.” — Andre Godin
Behind every amazing product is a great product manager. In tech companies, great product managers master a lot of areas.
Here are the most important ones:
#1 — Vision and Strategy
They know their customers (i.e. know their struggles, pain points, and needs.)
They have a plan of validation.
They define what success looks like.
They develop a strong point of view rooted in data and insight.
#2 — Roadmap and Impact
They create and maintain the product roadmap.
They provide the requirements and acceptance criteria.
They remove roadblocks for their teams.
They set the priorities and milestones.
They devise a go-to-market strategy.
They sign off on quality (UX, functionality and performance).
They understand the architecture of their product.
They know their tools.
They account for everything.
They take risks.
They operate their product (launch it, measure its impact, manage its evolution with testing and data, and decide when to retire it).
#3 — Communication and Visibility
They are the face of the product.
They evangelize a shared understanding of their product.
They tell the story often.
They listen often.
They ensure the WHY and the WHAT of their product are crystal clear.
They write about their product.
#4 — Leadership and Culture
They set the team’s culture and tone.
They promote critical thinking.
They embrace radical candor.
They limit Promises in Progress (PIP).
They collaborate cross-functionally with influence and empathy.
They are humble.
They enforce the No Asshole Rule.
They value time and protect it at all cost.
They follow up.
They follow through.
They own the mistakes of the product.
They share the success of the product.
These expectations are skills and habits that can be learned, improved upon and mastered over time. Product managers are the CEOs of their products. They own it end-to-end. The puck stops with them.
Do you have different expectations of the role of a product manager? What’s missing from this list? Would love to hear your thoughts.