Picking Winners in the Product Management Lottery
Introduction
I wrote in a previous Linkedin article about listening to travel sales leaders comment on the question “is sales an art or science”. On that occasion the broad consensus was that selling is a science, but its execution is an art form.
The tension between art and science is not unique to sales, with a similar dynamic evident in the role of product leaders when defining, building, deploying and scaling propositions in global markets.
Over the last 20 years my own product-centric experience means I’ve been asked the same question multiple times over:
“So how did you do that?”
This blog post is the first in a 5 part series intended to offer an experiential set of notes as a reference to companies and teams looking at how to innovate, to create great new products and to build commitment within, across, above and below in their organisations.
If you’re reading this as a senior commercial or business unit leader, then you have my sympathies - product managers can be a frustrating bunch sometimes with their roadmaps, their views on markets versus customer needs, but mostly they are very well motivated and if you can learn how to communicate and collaborate with them you’ll be rewarded multiple times over.
If you’re a technology leader in a challenging relationship with your product peer group, then there are some things here that may help you but remember this above all else - your fate and future is joined at the hip with your product brothers and sisters.
If you’re a senior operating leader wondering how and why all the investment is failing to deliver the expected return in the timescales promised, then there may be some pointers in this that help you positively challenge your product and technology teams to find their momentum and path forward again.
And last but not least, if you’re a current or aspiring product manager, what follows is intended not to provide you with a 12-step plan or a structured methodology. There are already plenty of those around written by people undoubtedly better qualified to do so than I am. Instead, I’m offering a small set of observations whose purpose is to share some experiences from my own journey to date through product management and other roles in corporate life. From these experiences there are several insights and learnings’ that I’ve gathered along the way that I believe may be of value to others on their own product management paths. So, in this blog, lets start with the most basic – what makes a product manager successful?
How to pick the winners?
I’ve met and worked with hundreds of product-oriented leaders over the last 20 years. I’ve met them in the early stage, mid stage and late stages of their careers. Some have rolled over from other disciplines, some of have set out to be product managers as at least the current focus of their career path and some, well, some were just told to be product managers because somebody thought that they could or should be. And some were asked to become one: typically crossing over from commercial roles, because commercial leaders tend to trust one of their own more than those of the product management tribe.
There’s a ton of literature and other materials out there that speak to the science of effective product management. Instead I offer a view of a single question and answer that I consider to be a powerful indicator to long term success when looking at your product teams in review, in hiring or in their professional development. In my experience the key is that product management is both an art and science. The science is very well documented, the art less well understood but perhaps much more important. In my view the key is to figure out what the artistic instincts of your current and future product leaders are.
Art vs Science
Some product managers are technically oriented, some are marketing focused and some have a deep appreciation of the commercial imperative.
There are hundreds of books, thousands of courses and qualifications and tens of thousands of articles and posts (like this) about how to be great as a product manager.
In more recent years I’ve come across increasingly idealistic cohorts of qualified, newly minted product managers. In each case they are familiar with the practice and theory of product management and they are deeply passionate about building solutions for customers. Encountering more and more of these qualified, certified and very motivated group and having first-hand experience of watching their varying capabilities and successes as product leaders, I’ve developed my own belief that the difference between those who are good enough as opposed to those who have the potential to be great is closely correlated to their answer to the following question:
“What is the primary responsibility of a product manager”?
I’ve asked this question hundreds of times in interviews, one on one meetings, performance reviews and informal discussions. It’s become one of my favourite questions to ask product managers and leaders because I’ve found it does more to reveal the artistic leaning of a product manager versus their scientific training. And it’s the artistic leaning of a product manager that I’ve found offers one of the best indicators of long-term success in a product role.
The answer to this question will typically come in 4 different flavours.
1. I want to be the CEO of my product
2. I want to build great solutions for my customers
3. I’m really interested in building software to solve interesting problems
4. I’m really committed to being at the centre of how stuff gets done
Here’s why each of those 4 answers is the wrong answer (or at best incomplete) in my experience.
“I want to be the CEO of my product” “
So, I’m going to confess, I have a deep bias against this statement. I find it a particularly pernicious and meaningless throwaway that has done more damage to the cause of effective product management than any other single phrase. The reason for this is that it creates an inflated sense of the Product Managers role and contribution, provides an abstracted glamorization which kills off real discussion about what product leaders are there to do and draws in a whole cohort of up and coming talent that is sold an unrealistic and unhelpful headline about what their role and contribution is expected to be.
Product Managers are not the CEO of their product. Yes, there are characteristics in common such as being accountable for many things you don’t directly control, having ultimate accountability for success or failure. But in truth I’ve found this overstates the product role and frankly hides the sheer grind and grunt work that product managers should expect and be accustomed to.
“I want to build great solutions for my customers”
We’re getting warmer now. At least in this phrase we’re now talking about the real business of producing a solution and for a target audience. It’s great that someone wants to build something great. And even better that they’ve mentioned end customers. But what does ‘great’ really mean and how do you know if you’re building the very best solution possible. We’re still missing reference to resources, capital, return on investment, market share – but at least we’re getting somewhere now
“I’m really interested in building software to solve interesting problems”
Part of me really likes this answer, but it’s also something of a potential red flag. It illustrates curiosity and an innate instinct to create value for someone – but not necessarily the right someone in this instance. We all want to work on interesting problems and I do believe that being obsessed with the problem is a core attribute of success in a product role.
“I’m really committed to being at the centre of how stuff gets done”
Very few people answer the question this way in my experience, but those who do are illustrating a recognition of and appetite for the core purpose of product function which is to command and control, without direct authority, how the various functions of a company line up to solve a clear and well articulate problem for a well understand set of target customers.
The answer I’m most interested in however is not the 4 most common types I’ve listed above; it is in fact a fifth answer that very few offer on the first go.
The product manager role is primarily responsible for generating the maximum possible return for the deployment of capital (human, financial and technical)
The Primary Responsibility for Return
To be honest no-one has ever answered the question exactly like this. But I’ve worked with enough commercial leaders and business owners to know at this stage, that this is ultimately their litmus test of a great product function and a great product leader. To break this down:
“primarily responsible” – everyone knows that product managers are not ‘in charge’ in the classic organisational sense. However, they should be seen nonetheless as the person primarily responsible for success. In the absence of a direct line authority this means that one of the core internal bias that you want in your product leaders is an instinct to deeply internalise ‘primary responsibility’.
“maximum possible return for…” – for me this is important because one of the central tenets of product leadership is the ability to understand in aggregate the resources being consumed in pursuit of a market leading product. The phrase can be seen as equally applying to holding the most complete view of the value being created for your target customers as well as the most complete view of long-term value being created for your company
“the deployment of capital” – capital exists in financial, human, intellectual and other forms. Essentially the effort to fund, create, design, imagine, market, sell and deploy a solution represents the deployment of capital in all its forms. Typically, this is most often measured primarily in financial terms, but product leaders are uniquely placed to view this. A key indicator of success in a product role is the degree to which someone internalises and recognises implicitly their accountability for this outcome.
I haven’t often encountered any version of this phrase very often in my interactions with product teams and leaders, but my experience both direct and indirect has taught me that above all else, the most effective product leaders internalise and then clearly demonstrate this commitment in every action and decision they take.
The reason this is a powerful indicator of success is that it reflects those attributes of the role that matter most (but are rarely articulated)
1) It calls out that the purpose is not in and of itself the building of software or product, it is generating a return of value
2) It invites challenge – is this really the best way to generate that return, can we, should we be doing something else?
3) Deployment of capital – more than any other single role, product managers have to care deeply about how the resources they are overseeing are deployed AND need to have a deep sense that the deployment of capital is a cost for which the primary measure of success is a return
I’ve deliberately left out mention of profit, revenue or other financial metrics because ultimately value based on deployed capital may be measured in ways other than strictly financial – but realistically in most companies this is one of the key measures of value creation. In another blog post I’ll touch on why this framing has strong halo effects on building communication and trust with wider stakeholder groups across commercial, technology, sales, marketing and finance.
Building a successful product group and cultivating product leaders within your organisation is a complicated commitment and the answer to a single question is not a universally proven means to indicate the propensity for success or failure. It does however provide both the organisation and its various stakeholder groups a better framework for committing to the implicit and explicit rationale for an effective product function and offers a non-traditional set of guide rails for what you should expect from your product teams and leaders over the short, medium and long term.
With a means to use a guiding principle to look for and foster talent in your product management teams in your organisation, one of the most interesting challenges then is to look at the question of alignment. Or as many organisations end up debating it, who’s in charge?
In my next blog I’ll share some thinking on this ‘who’s in charge question’ and provide some observations on why this question needs to change in many companies and how that can contribute to building a more successful enterprise for the long term.