In 2012 Ben Horowitz published a list of good product manager behaviors. For the last 15 years or so I’ve been keeping my own list inspired by his original work, my long time mentor Dwight Porter, and the dozens of excellent product managers I’ve worked with over the years. Each one of these 17 bullets holds a story – many of them hard earned lessons. For folks who have worked with me before, some of these may be familiar. Enjoy!
• Makes decisions based on principles and data NOT based on beliefs and perception.
• Delivers products into the arms of waiting customers NOT builds products and then tries to find a customer.
• Goes to the source of the market feedback (line workers) to understand the full color NOT reads high level aggregated/summarized bullets from managers.
• Treats field team as an input into decision making NOT delegates decisions to the field team.
• Writes clear and concise wiki documentation NOT spends all their time answering individual one-off questions from the field.
• Seeks always to learn and understand first NOT proposing solutions first.
• Always understands the underlying problem we’re solving NOT executes without having full context.
• Builds products that create value for our customer’s business (and our customer’s customer’s business) NOT builds products that create value only for our business.
• Gets buy in early and often from key stakeholders and executive sponsors NOT working in a vacuum.
• Partners with engineering teams for input, feedback, and ideas NOT just for execution and delivery.
• Has a deep understanding of the entire “system” from customer problem to technical complexity to marketing and support NOT focuses only on one part of the system.
• Passionately evangelizes a vision that inspires others NOT expects others to do what you say.
• Builds relationships with functional leaders using data-backed research to influence decisions NOT dictates what functional leaders should do.
• Takes responsibility for 200% of the things that go wrong NOT point the finger at others.
• Surfaces data and options for functional leaders that makes the right decision obvious NOT makes decisions for functional leaders.
• In chaos, clings to problems, outcomes and data NOT just to what someone says should be done.
• Respectfully explains the obvious NOT assumes everyone knows what you’re talking about.