Product management isn’t easy. Even the best product managers can find themselves off course. Embracing self-awareness helps you discover new opportunities for professional growth and better support your product team.
To help your development, this article discusses the common mistakes product managers make – from ignoring user feedback to building shiny features that nobody wants – and practical ways to get back on track:
As a PM, you need to be able to confidently make informed decisions. While data analysis and collaboration are important parts of decision-making, it can also serve as a distraction.
Spending too much time in discussions with stakeholders or overanalyzing data can hinder progress. Indecisiveness or not making timely decisions can delay product development and cause you to miss market opportunities.
How to fix this mistake:
Embrace the concept of failure. The faster you fail, the quicker you can get to a solution that works.
Prioritization frameworks, such as RICE (reach, impact, confidence, effort) or MoSCoW (must have, should have, could have, or won’t have), can provide objectivity in determining the feasibility of product features. They also make it easier to share with stakeholders about why a specific idea is the best choice.
It’s also important to consider context when making decisions. Not every decision needs data to back it up. Sometimes a well-developed intuition based on experience and domain knowledge is enough to move forward.
Misaligned goals and strained relationships are often the fruit of not managing expectations with stakeholders. Sometimes teams might provide overly ambitious timelines or inaccurate projections. When you rely on this information, they may inadvertently create unrealistic expectations for other stakeholders.
Another issue is that product managers may want to say “yes” to all stakeholder demands. While keeping stakeholders happy is important, it may risk overcommitting resources or lead to a compromised product.
How to fix this mistake:
Stakeholders should receive reasonable expectations for timelines. Consider adding some buffer time to proposed timelines to ensure that delays won’t impact the whole development process.
You can also consider creating “realistic goals” and “stretch goals.” The realistic goal is attainable even with delays. Meanwhile, the stretch goal is more ambitious and has a shorter timeline. It can help manage expectations with stakeholders about when a project can be completed.
If you notice early on that you’ll not meet project deadlines, it’s time to meet with stakeholders to adjust their expectations of what will be available by that date. Your meeting should provide transparency, highlight the root cause of the delay, and share the lessons learned. You’ll also present a revised timeline and outline strategies to prevent the same problem from reoccurring.
Micromanagement can manifest in several ways, including requiring approval for every task, constantly requesting updates, and focusing on minor details instead of the big picture. It can affect a team’s productivity and creativity. Constant supervision can erode trust, autonomy, and a team member’s confidence.
You may start micromanaging out of an effort to produce great work, but it has the opposite effect. Micromanagement can also affect a manager’s performance since they focus on minute details instead of strategic initiatives.
How to fix this mistake:
Focus on building trust and encouraging autonomy within teams. You can do this by empowering team members to make their own decisions. By giving team members space to make decisions and providing support, you can easily balance guidance and autonomy.
Some actionable steps can include:
Building relationships can have surprisingly positive outcomes on your performance as a product manager. Strong connections can help navigate cross-functional teams and ensure alignment.
Relationships can also provide insights into the challenges of other people’s jobs and how to work with them effectively. Moreover, these people are more willing to share insights and ideas if they have a relationship with you.
How to fix this mistake:
Put in the effort and time to connect with your colleagues outside the structured product tasks.
If networking and building relationships don’t come naturally to you, start with small efforts like asking what the other person does with their free time before or after a meeting. You can also read books like “Never Eat Alone” by Keith Ferrazzi to develop your networking skills.
You should never trade providing value to users for trendy features. You need to validate that your users want those features first. Likewise, personal preferences, stakeholder demands, and internal processes aren’t good frameworks for decision-making. Instead of a customer-focused product, you may end up creating a product that users don’t use.
How to fix this mistake:
Adopt a customer-centric approach to your work. Start by validating demand for new products and features through comprehensive customer feedback and market analysis. Consider the customer through regular user interviews and surveys during every stage of the product development cycle.
When working with customer data, make sure that it’s accurate and relevant. Low-quality data can lead you to make the wrong choice. Some common errors include:
How to fix this mistake:
To ensure accurate data, prioritize creating a centralized source of truth. Using data validation tools, conducting frequent quality checks, and cleansing data of errors are crucial ways to ensure accurate data.
Avoid confirmation bias and assumptions by embracing diverse opinions. You should also leverage analytics, user behavior metrics, and market trends to guide decision-making.
Ineffective communication causes confusion, delays, and misaligned efforts among departments. Poor documentation and not sharing the product vision are major culprits of miscommunication.
Another issue is not creating strong communication channels between team members. It can create siloed departments and make it more difficult to work in alignment with the product strategy.
How to fix this mistake:
Create a centralized, accessible repository of all project-related information. Regularly update it and inform team members of any new changes.
You may find that team members may ignore this repository. To counter this, hold regular meetings to discuss new updates and ensure departments are aware of what’s happening. It can also create opportunities for cross-functional collaboration.
Self-imposed isolation causes a host of issues. By not seeking assistance, you can impair your performance and ultimately, affect product success. Other problems can manifest like:
Product managers who don’t delegate tasks are often in a position of not having enough time to do their tasks. You should ask for help managing your workload when it becomes overwhelming
How to fix this mistake:
Delegating tasks and releasing control will improve your workflow. While tasks may not come out the same way as if you did them, the long-term value will massively improve your performance.
Take the time to train and coach team members so they can take on some of your work tasks. If there are no team members with the bandwidth to help, you may want to approach management and ask for more employees.
One of the biggest nightmares for a PM is building something that no one uses. There are many reasons why this could happen. If it happens to you, you should evaluate what you could have done differently.
What were the red flags that you missed? Sometimes it happens because departments were operating in a silo. Or maybe you couldn’t notice a red flag because your research and data weren’t collected properly. Knowing the answer can help you avoid making the same error in future projects.
Product managers aren’t perfect and mistakes will happen. However, every issue offers a learning opportunity. You’ll learn valuable insights into product management and how to avoid problems in the future. Keeping yourself accountable and promoting self-awareness goes a long way in making yourself the best product manager possible.
Featured image source: IconScout
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