Good Product Managers, Bad Product Managers

Finding great product managers is one of the hardest roles to hire for in any company I find. Great product managers are often unemployable and become the entrepreneurs themselves. But not impossible. The below paper written by  the acclaimed entrepreneur-turned-VC Ben Horowitz which is taught at Stanford is the best i’ve read so far that articulates the distinction between a good and a bad Product Manager. It’s a must read  for any entrepreneur, CEO, recruitment professional or product manager

It can also be found on Stanford’s website here

Courtesy of Ben Horowitz

Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line and
the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of
knowledge and confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the
product.  A good product manager takes full responsibility and measures
themselves in terms of the success of the product. The are responsible
for right product/right time and all that entails. A good product
manager  knows the context going in (the company, our revenue funding,
competition, etc.), and they take responsibility for devising and
executing a winning plan (no excuses).

Bad product managers have lots of excuses. Not enough funding, the
engineering manager is an idiot, Microsoft has 10 times as many engineers
working on it, I'm overworked, I don't get enough direction. Barksdale
doesn't make these kinds of excuses and neither should the CEO of a
product.

Good product managers don't get all of their time sucked up by the
various organizations that must work together to deliver right product
right time. They don't take all the product team minutes, they don't
project manage the various functions, they are not gophers for
engineering. They are not part of the product team; they manage the
product team. Engineering teams don't consider Good Product Managers a
"marketing resource." Good product managers are the marketing counterpart
of the engineering manager. Good product managers crisply define the
target, the "what" (as opposed to the how) and manage the delivery of the
"what." Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure
out "how". Good product managers communicate crisply to engineering in
writing as well as verbally. Good product managers don't give direction
informally. Good product managers gather information informally.

Good product managers create leveragable collateral, FAQs, presentations,
white papers. Bad product managers complain that they spend all day
answering questions for the sales force and are swamped. Good product
managers anticipate the serious product flaws and build real solutions.
Bad product managers put out fires all day. Good product managers take
written positions on important issues (competitive silver bullets, tough
architectural choices, tough product decisions, markets to attack or
yield). Bad product managers voice their opinion verbally and lament that
the "powers that be" won't let it happen. Once bad product managers fail,
they point out that they predicted they would fail.

Good product managers focus the team on revenue and customers. Bad
product managers focus team on how many features Microsoft is building.
Good product managers define good products that can be executed with a
strong effort. Bad product managers define good products that can't be
executed or let engineering build whatever they want (i.e. solve the
hardest problem).

Good product managers think in terms of delivering superior value to the
market place during inbound planning and achieving market share and
revenue goals during outbound. Bad product managers get very confused
about the differences amongst delivering value, matching competitive
features, pricing, and ubiquity. Good product managers decompose
problems. Bad product managers combine all problems into one.

Good product managers think about the story they want written by the
press. Bad product managers think about covering every feature and being
really technically accurate with the press. Good product managers ask the
press questions. Bad product managers answer any press question. Good
product managers assume press and analyst people are really smart. Bad
product managers assume that press and analysts are dumb because they
don't understand the difference between "push" and "simulated push."

Good product managers err on the side of clarity vs. explaining the
obvious. Bad product managers never explain the obvious. Good product
managers define their job and their success. Bad product managers
constantly want to be told what to do.

Good product managers send their status reports in on time every week,
because they are disciplined. Bad product managers forget to send in
their status reports on time, because they don't value discipline.
 
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