I’ve had the opportunity to work on tech products all over the world. Whilst I enjoyed great success in launching some of the most influential and impactful tools in the tech scene, I also stumbled upon many hurdles and failures. I’ve launched features that failed, been yelled at by customers for mis-sold products, developed features that didn’t quite meet the needs of the customers, ect. The list goes on and is unique to everyone’s personal experience, however, my journey has taught me some very useful and precious skills that have helped me thrive as a product manager. So I’d like to share those skills and learnings with you in the hope that this will help you in your journey to becoming a better Product Manager. 

1. Know your customer’s problems

Launching products that address customer problems should be the very foundation of your product strategy. It really doesn’t matter how amazing or technology advanced your product is, people will not spend their money on your product unless you’re solving their problems. The process to identify customer’s pain points may not be the easiest process but it is surely something you’ll need to master and is the key ingredient to build a useful and successful product. Therefore please make sure that you know your customer’s problems. I will soon write another article on how to uncover real pain points of your clients – I have some tips and tricks up my sleeve!

2. Get to know your industry inside out 

I truly believe that industry knowledge is something that is often overlooked and not discussed often enough when it comes to product management. When you build a potential solution it’s quite common that you’ll be navigating through a landscape that is heavily regulated. It can get quite dismaying and a good product manager needs to have enough knowledge about the industry they’re operating in to perform basic PM tasks such as guiding conversations, prioritising features, asking the right questions and finalising requirements. Industry knowledge means having a good understanding of the trends in the industry that drive buying decisions of the customers, understanding their problems and finding the solution for them. After all, customer problems are the most valuable treasure for product management. The better you understand and find solutions for them, the better product manager you are!

3. Listen to your customers…but focus on the right problems!

Dave Washa, CPO of PhotoBox, once said “Your job as a PM is to be maniacally focused on understanding your customer’s problems” – and I couldn’t agree more. The only way to understand your customer’s problems is to listen to your customers. Having said that, your customers will vary in nature and whilst your customers are different, your solution will be singular. If you’re working in a startup with limited resources and time you have to make sure that you work on the most impactful features first. Customers will often raise tons of feature requests, but it’s your job to make sure that you focus on listening to the customer problems that will address most of your customer base and solve the biggest challenges first. With a focus on satisfying customers of all varieties and keeping them happy, you can end up under-delivering to all. But in general I second what Maxwell Wessel said – “follow the adage that your customers are always right. It’s a nice mantra that will help ensure your service standards are high”.

4. Time is money – prioritise accordingly!

Prioritisation – probably one of the most important product management concepts and it’s definitely something you’ll have to deal with on a daily basis – I certainly do. As a matter of fact you will not be able to get everything done at once. You’re working with limited time and resources so it’s your job to make sure that you’re working on the most impactful things first. One thing I want you to note there is that time is money and if you’re not prioritising the right features first you’re wasting resources, time and therefore the company’s money. So get your ducks in a row and prioritise your most impactful features first. I will also write another article on some techniques that you can apply to easily prioritise features, bugs and tasks. 

5. Get your Agile implementation right

If you’re working in a startup, the chances are quite high that your engineers will be overworked and the last thing you want to do is to slam their calendar with unnecessary long meetings. Whilst I am an advocate of agile methodologies such as Scrum, you can often land in a situation where your Scrum meetings are just too long. As a general rule of thumb, about 85%-90% of your time should be made available to get the work done. The rest should be spent on ceremonies such as Sprint planning, daily stand-ups, sprint reviews and retrospectives. Also don’t feel forced to hold those meetings if there is no need to hold them – be flexible and agile!

6. Say no – just do it, it’s quite easy

Learn the art of saying “NO”. Trust me you can do it and it’s not that hard. You will be dealing with a lot of stakeholders, sometimes lots of unhappy people with lots of feature requests. Your job is not to make your stakeholders happy but making sure that your customers are! Have the courage to say no to feature requests that are not worth building- obviously give the right reasons and communicate effectively. You’ll see saying no will become quite easy!

7. Be data driven/informed where possible

Data is the new oil! This is the phrase every product manager should live by. When I launched the donation tools for Facebook, every product and business decision that we took was based on underlying data. Not only will this help you with prioritising the right features and setting success criteria for features that you will be working on but it will also help you to measure success once you’ve launched your product to your customers, therefore make sure to always be data informed where possible!