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Reflecting on a career in product management

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Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#11

Post by jaybrendansmith »

n8cpdx wrote: post #8

It seems like there’s been a rush to the science mindset and the art part has been ignored by many in industry for the last 5-10 years. I remember wanting to be a PM, but experience with the MBA-ification of the field has embittered me. Seeing products (like Xamarin.Forms) systematically destroyed by focus on shallow metrics has been really sad. I remember being excited for that product to get a PM. Then the product…

This is entirely because of a weak product culture at those companies. What does that mean? It means product is unable to make recommendations based on experience or design, only metrics. This is because engineering management only listens to metrics and data. (And yes, it could also be because the product team lacks talent) If there's a strong product culture, for example what Jobs had at Apple for a long time, the product team has executive backing and is able to make what others would call risky decisions. However if you are the product manager, speaking to the customers, these decisions are actually pretty obvious, and not particularly risky at all. Fortunately, in this situation you are empowered to make the right decisions for the end users. (To take a dead-obvious example: No macbook pro product lead would have ever suggested to remove all the ports. This decision was made by design. Had there been anyone in product with serious backing, this would never had been allowed to happen.) If you are in product management, the most important career decision you can make is to find companies with a strong product culture. Don't pick firms that do not value product, you will only be sidelined and blamed for their poor product decisions. The biggest challenge with your chosen career is that nobody outside of it understands it. It takes a certain confidence and a great deal of skill to be consistently successful.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#12

Post by beckingz »

candiddevmike wrote: post #9
n8cpdx wrote: post #8

It seems like there’s been a rush to the science mindset and the art part has been ignored by many in industry for the last 5-10 years. I remember wanting to be a PM, but experience with the MBA-ification of the field has embittered me. Seeing products (like Xamarin.Forms) systematically destroyed by focus on shallow metrics has been really sad. I remember being excited for that product to get a PM. Then the product…

If it makes you feel better, these PMs are ruining development too: the developers can absolutely see that issue you referenced and were probably telling the PM they can knock it out in a few minutes or even started working on it already. PM will step in and say no, you do what's on the backlog. Developers lose all agency and start quitting. Product further deteriorates. As a dev, the best kind of work is when you're…

And this is why Product Engineers are a thing now.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#13

Post by somewhereoutth »

polote wrote: post #2

Even if that kind of article is interesting to read, I like the science vs art part (even if I believe the art part can't be learned). There is not much one care learn about the post. Experience is difficult to learn by another way than experiencing it. I would add the list, that the biggest thing that people never understand in product management. Is that working on a B2B SMB/ B2C product vs a B2B Enterprise product…

Indeed.

BTC/SMB is about creating a complete product to serve many customers in the marketplace and take advantage of economies of scale. Marketing is key.

B2E is about working with perhaps just a few clients to develop bespoke solutions (that may have a product element) targeting their specific business needs. Relationship building is key.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#14

Post by thenerdhead »

n8cpdx wrote: post #8

It seems like there’s been a rush to the science mindset and the art part has been ignored by many in industry for the last 5-10 years. I remember wanting to be a PM, but experience with the MBA-ification of the field has embittered me. Seeing products (like Xamarin.Forms) systematically destroyed by focus on shallow metrics has been really sad. I remember being excited for that product to get a PM. Then the product…

Yep. It's a very logical, data-driven mindset that is only concerned about "pushing the needle closer" rather than providing actual value.

Many of the mechanisms of how those teams operate are flawed. You may have filed the same issue that was closed previously because of low upvotes, but now there are multiple reports of it! It's almost an anti-pattern of being data-driven.

Most companies know that business metrics follow great products when teams have full autonomy, competence, and relatedness. (i.e. VS Code, JetBrains Suite, etc). Sadly in the process they end up killing those very things that made them successful when reaching certain scale.

The PM discipline is getting more definition in the industry, but to your point, hardly anybody practices the art. The art to me is being "data inspired", not driven or informed. It's hard for PMs in big tech to do that nowadays unless it part of the culture from the top-down or taught/mentored from the bottom-up.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#15

Post by kbos87 »

danjac wrote: post #6
doctor_eval wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t necessarily disagree with you re B2B vs B2C but I think we should question it. There is nothing fundamentally different between apps for these audiences. So why do they require different mindsets?

B2C - you have to design an app that appeals to people who will buy and use it. B2B - you have to design an app that appeals to people who will buy it and force other people to use it.

This is still true in pockets but in some spaces it’s falling out of favor. Companies and leaders know that they need to worry about adoption, so there’s slow but increasing focus on end user UX and incorporating these folks into the buying process.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#16

Post by Spooky23 »

doctor_eval wrote: post #3
polote wrote: post #2

Even if that kind of article is interesting to read, I like the science vs art part (even if I believe the art part can't be learned). There is not much one care learn about the post. Experience is difficult to learn by another way than experiencing it. I would add the list, that the biggest thing that people never understand in product management. Is that working on a B2B SMB/ B2C product vs a B2B Enterprise product…

I don’t necessarily disagree with you re B2B vs B2C but I think we should question it. There is nothing fundamentally different between apps for these audiences. So why do they require different mindsets?

You need to convince a user to adopt in B2C. There needs to be a benefit to them and you need to understand them.

I run a large line of business in a big “E”. Our requirements may not even be known to the end users and may make their lives miserable. Nobody cares.

We have lots of money, but I can’t tell the taxing authority that we can’t comply with some demand in 3 months because our finance clerks will be miserable, and I can’t get the engineering resources allocated to some administrative process at the expense of the customer. We do look at process engineering and often find ways to fix things that are really bad — but end of the day making things pretty for enterprise users is at best a secondary priority.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#17

Post by realityking »

somewhereoutth wrote: post #13
polote wrote: post #2

Even if that kind of article is interesting to read, I like the science vs art part (even if I believe the art part can't be learned). There is not much one care learn about the post. Experience is difficult to learn by another way than experiencing it. I would add the list, that the biggest thing that people never understand in product management. Is that working on a B2B SMB/ B2C product vs a B2B Enterprise product…

Indeed. BTC/SMB is about creating a complete product to serve many customers in the marketplace and take advantage of economies of scale. Marketing is key. B2E is about working with perhaps just a few clients to develop bespoke solutions (that may have a product element) targeting their specific business needs. Relationship building is key.

Where do you see solutions like Twillio and Cloudflare in this? They have a complete solution taking advantage of scale but make most of their money in Enterprise deals?

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#18

Post by luckydata »

daniealapt wrote: post #5
polote wrote: post #2

Even if that kind of article is interesting to read, I like the science vs art part (even if I believe the art part can't be learned). There is not much one care learn about the post. Experience is difficult to learn by another way than experiencing it. I would add the list, that the biggest thing that people never understand in product management. Is that working on a B2B SMB/ B2C product vs a B2B Enterprise product…

You can learn the art. You can learn and reflect. For learning, read. “How to Win Friends and Influence People” by Dale Carnegie, or “Start with Why” by Simon Sinek come to mind. They will grow your communication, vision setting and influencing skills. Skills which are part of the “art” of product management. And every day provides an opportunity to reflect and learn from the day’s events.

Sinek is a fraud. There's nothing useful to be learned from that book that you can't get from common sense.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#19

Post by ryandrake »

n8cpdx wrote: post #8

It seems like there’s been a rush to the science mindset and the art part has been ignored by many in industry for the last 5-10 years. I remember wanting to be a PM, but experience with the MBA-ification of the field has embittered me. Seeing products (like Xamarin.Forms) systematically destroyed by focus on shallow metrics has been really sad. I remember being excited for that product to get a PM. Then the product…

I was briefly a PM in a past company and I agree 100%. The obsession with chasing business metrics over actual performance, quality, and end-user value is demoralizing. And it’s not just chasing metrics: it’s chasing vanity metrics like 7-day retention and number of weekly new installs (ignoring uninstalls).

I could never give the engineering team time to fix bugs, improve efficiency, or clean up tech debt, because of the constant pressure to feature-cram and juice “engagement” metrics.

I’ve since moved on to being a Program Manager so I can focus on the “when” and “how” and be a neutral third party when it comes to the “what”. Only way to keep sane.

Re: Reflecting on a career in product management

#20

Post by dexterous »

thenerdhead wrote: post #14
n8cpdx wrote: post #8

It seems like there’s been a rush to the science mindset and the art part has been ignored by many in industry for the last 5-10 years. I remember wanting to be a PM, but experience with the MBA-ification of the field has embittered me. Seeing products (like Xamarin.Forms) systematically destroyed by focus on shallow metrics has been really sad. I remember being excited for that product to get a PM. Then the product…

Yep. It's a very logical, data-driven mindset that is only concerned about "pushing the needle closer" rather than providing actual value. Many of the mechanisms of how those teams operate are flawed. You may have filed the same issue that was closed previously because of low upvotes, but now there are multiple reports of it! It's almost an anti-pattern of being data-driven. Most companies know that business metrics…

The COO at my last job kept touting the aphorism "Data Trumps Opinion" to the point where he had T-shirts made with that (facepalm!)

I'm just glad those just sat on his table and never made it onto anyone's back.

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