#103 It's easy to think everyone is blaming you and are setting you up for failure. It's hard to consider that as constructive feedback to improve yourself. #102 Post mortems of every interactions you have with products, people and tech will help you dissect and learn better and faster. #101 Visualizing problems, solutions and any complex concepts – even just for yourself – will immensely simplify things for you. #100 Every interaction you have with daily use products is an opportunity to learn about product management. #99 Path for continuous discovery is Outcomes -> Opportunity -> Solutions. Dont flip that order. #98 Raise your team. Give more credit than you get. #97 Aim to be the best in your niche. #96 Don't use a sniper rifle when a shotgun would do the job. #95 It is better to build nothing than to build something random. #94 You have to believe in the product you're building. Otherwise, you won't make it a success. #93 Building a great product is writing a screenplay of your customers. You need identify and communicate the motivations effectively #92 The fastest way to a yes, is tackle all the reasons for a No #91 #90 Allow yourself to be fascinated by new things. #89 Spend time with products: yours, competitors, and other products that fascinate you. #88 Begin each day with an intent. #87 Argue like you're right, listen like you're wrong. #86 Some organizations cannot shift to Agile. Don't waste your energy in convincing them through logic. #85 There will be resistance when you try to improve things. Even if it benefits the team.
Nobody likes change.
Nobody. #84 Be open to expose your decision making process. #83 You will never have time to do everything you need to do.
Your prioritization is ALWAYS going to make someone unhappy. #82 If you are not on the right team, your title may be Product Manager, but you will be doing Project Management or Scrum Master or just moving tasks around. #81 When things go great, the team will celebrate!
When things go wrong… you are the first one they'll blame. Take responsibility for your mistakes. #80 Own your calendar. Sacrificing your time to please others will lead to mental and physical damage. #79 Be positive and enthusiastic about outcomes. It might not affect everyone – but to those it does affect, it matters. #78 It's better to build a strong lasting relationship w/ people than to lose it over a feature. #77 Learning to say no is a difficult but an important part of PM roles. #76 When the facts change, change your mind. #75 Less software is better for you and the team. #74 Idea generation is not restricted to product management. Idea assessment is… know your place. #73 While you're not expected to convince everyone on the vision, you are expected to address the conflicts. #72 Identifying customers real needs is more important than identifying the solutions. #71 You won't always be right. But you will, at some point, be right most of the times. #70 Product management is the pursuit of answering two unanswerable questions: Am I asking the right questions? and Am I building the right experiences? #69 It's better to be an interesting product manager than a smart one. Interesting PMs have wider and unique world views. #68 Do not confuse features for benefits #67 Do not mistake customers for users. #66 Do not confuse Customer requirements for Product requirements. #65 If your roadmaps are decided at the beginning of the year and do not change with customer/business priorities, you might be a corpo product manager. #64 If you (or people around you) talk a lot of theory, you might just be a corporate product manager. #63 If you include covering your ass activities as a central part of your day, you might just be a corporate product manager. #62 If you prefer mediocrity in your work, because no one else can check it, you might just be a corporate product manager. #61 One indicator of your success as a PM is if the team looks to you for vision, strategy and direction as often as they do for conflict resolution. #60 A framework is as good as the respect it gets from the stakeholders. #59 Working Iteration over Perfection. #58 Product over Politics. Always. #57 Humility Over Ego. #56 Don't be a focal point of all communication in your team. Instead, be a facilitator. #55 Every successful product has had to go through massive rivisions to reach where it is now. Your journey begins now. #54 Every feature you bring into your product is a choice for the customer. Remember the Choice Overload bias and map the potential user impact #53 Trusting your team is important, but don't be too trusting. Trust, but verify. #52 Spread the knowledge you've gained. It'll help you get better. #51 Your success as a PM is more about your ability to process a ton of cross-functional information and be decisive in the face of uncertainity. #50 When you are in a position of power, most people will not feel comfortable being 100% honest with you. Avoid yes-men and find voices of reason. #49 A problem can’t be defined unless you know who is struggling and how much… #47 Getting better at understanding complex concepts fast is the key for product success. #46 Focusing on your current user base gives you incremental growth. Focusing on unengaged users can give you exponential growth. #45 Both with people and product features, understand the capabilities and the intentions. Know when to put efforts into either. #44 Avoid conversations where the speaker is switching constantly from specific to general, especially when you counter each step. Very good chance that the speaker doesn't have clarity. #43 If you're having troubles with selling an idea, check if the jargons used mean the same thing for everyone. #42 In the early stages of your product, it's perfectly fine to do things that don't scale. It'll help your product grow. #41 Your actions have consequences. Those consequences have further consequences. Get better at identifying those. #40 Story pointing is less for predicting the time to outcome and more for getting everyone on the same page. #39 Getting better at estimation is for your team to achieve. The work will take the same amount of time – witth or without the estimates #38 A well written product memo scales. #37 Distinguish features that are critical to the “what” of your product is from those that describe “how” your product is used. #36 Using analogies to explain concepts is fine. Using relatable analogies is much better. #35 Spend time to craft and use different explainations of a concept for different people types. #34 Don't jump into writing user stories. Take a step back and visualize the flow. Use tools like User Story mapping, JTBD, user flows to capture the experience. #33 How you frame the problem matters. Take into account context & maturity. #32 Your team is an important source of features. Pay attention to their inputs. #31 When you're right, repeat it twice. #30 Do not be afraid to break the rules. #29 Balance out forward planning & backward planning when building your product. #28 Long tail effect is real. Be careful before you dismiss ideas in favor of immediate hits. #27 Product management is an act of balancing everything. #26 Know every corner of your problem space before jumping into the solution space. #25 Don't mix cause & effect. The order matters. #24 Preemptively play out scenarios in your head before you go into a meeting #23 The wider your perspective, the better your problem defining ability. #22 Don't spend time in defining already solved problems. #21 Don't get discouraged if your organisation isn't following ideal ‘product management' practices. You still have scope to learn and grow. #20 It's better to be liked than to be right. #19 Seek perfection in your thoughts. Seek haste in your actions. #18 Reliable PMs tend to take the least amount of risk and consistently delivery tiny incremental growth. Good PMs tend to take more risks and deliver sporadic bursts in growth. Choose your path. #17 Find balance between seeking insights & beating insights from data. #16 It is OK to be wrong – especially early in your career. Learn from being wrong – both as a cause & effect as well as the network effect. #15 Start your day with an ambition to do something awesome. Make that your focus. #14 Either you run the day or the day runs you. #12 Don't bury your failures. Let them inspire you. #11 Don't bury your failures. Let them inspire you. #10 You're not bad at a particular thing. You are new to it. Practice and you'll get good. #9 Your learning/growth path differs greatly when your organization achieves a product market fit. #8 Leaders are not made by position — they are first formed in the absence of leadership. #7 Get more stakeholder agreement than necessary. You never know who'll be championing your product in the boardroom. #6 Think like a VC when pitching and defending your ideas. Some are bound to fail; all will be criticised. #5 Pareto principle is far more relevant than you think #4 Some lessons of product management have to experienced to be understood. #3 You don't have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step. #2 Truth equals fact plus context. #1 Begin. Take a leap of faith. Everything else will align.