Product Management in Practice
Tags: #business #technology #product management #teams #communication #leadership
Authors: Matt LeMay
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Overview
Product management is a challenging, rewarding, and often misunderstood role. In this book, I aim to demystify the practice of product management, offering practical and actionable advice for navigating the unique challenges and opportunities of the role. While many books on product management focus on theory and frameworks, this book emphasizes the messy, human, and connective realities of the product manager’s day-to-day work.
I introduce a new skill model for product managers built around four CORE skills: communication, organization, research, and execution. I offer tactical guidance for putting these skills into practice, from facilitating effective meetings to working with stakeholders and making tough prioritization decisions. I debunk common myths about product management (no, you don’t need to work 60 hours a week to be successful) and offer tactical advice for navigating common anxieties (don’t worry so much about whether you’re ‘technical enough’). I also explore the opportunities and challenges of remote and hybrid work, offering specific tips for leading and managing teams without a shared physical workspace.
This book is written for both new and aspiring product managers and for more experienced product managers who are looking to level up their skills. Ultimately, I hope this book provides a framework for thinking about product management as a practice that can be continuously developed and improved.
Book Outline
1. The Practice of Product Management
Product management is more about practice than theory, a reality often overlooked by newcomers enchanted by the promise of ‘building products that people love.’ The day-to-day work is less about building and more about communication, support, and facilitation. You will have a lot of responsibility but little direct authority, requiring a ‘whatever it takes’ mentality.
Key concept: The connective nature of product management means that the role will look very different depending on the people, perspectives, and roles that you are connecting.
2. The CORE Skills of Product Management
The work of product management requires its own set of skills, which I call CORE skills: * Communication is about prioritizing clarity over comfort, even when it means having difficult conversations. * Organization is about making yourself obsolete by building self-sustaining systems within your team. * Research is about immersing yourself in your user’s reality, not your own assumptions about what they need. * Execution is about ruthlessly prioritizing efforts toward achieving desired outcomes.
Key concept: The CORE skills of product management: * Communication: Clarity over comfort. * Organization: Make yourself obsolete. * Research: Live in your user’s reality. * Execution: All efforts in service of outcomes.
3. Showing Up Curious
Curiosity is a superpower for product managers. Don’t be afraid to ask questions about other people’s work, even if those questions feel ‘stupid.’ By approaching your colleagues from a place of open and genuine interest, you will be better able to understand their areas of expertise and build trust with them.
Key concept: “I’m curious to learn more about the work that you do.”
4. The Art of Egregious Overcommunication
Overcommunication is key. Err on the side of being too clear rather than too vague, as small miscommunications can snowball into big problems down the line. Embrace open questions and avoid yes-or-no battles of will by providing options rather than arguments. Even when you feel defensive, remember that most conflict is a result of unclear expectations and misaligned incentives rather than personal animosity.
Key concept: “Good Product Manager / Bad Product Manager”
5. Working with Senior Stakeholders (Or, Throwing the Poker Game)
Working with senior stakeholders often feels like playing a poker game against someone who has all the cards. Rather than attempting to ‘influence’ senior stakeholders toward a predetermined path, approach your conversations with them as an opportunity to inform them about what your team is working on, the goals of that work as you understand them, and any trade-offs that should be considered when making decisions.
Key concept: Senior stakeholders will always win the poker game. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ensure that your business and your users win along with them.
6. Talking to Users (or, “What’s a Poker Game?”)
Talking to users is a key skill for product managers, but one that involves unlearning many of the behaviors that help you successfully manage internal stakeholders. Unlike stakeholders, your users do not need to be aligned, informed, or persuaded. Instead of pushing solutions and seeking confirmation, approach user research with genuine curiosity and a willingness to ‘play dumb.’
Key concept: When talking to users, your job is to learn as much as you can about their goals, their needs, and their world. […] Putting this idea into practice involves less “sounding smart” than it does “playing dumb.”
7. The Worst Thing About “Best Practices”
Best practices can be useful resources, but over-reliance on them can lead to an incurious mindset, a false sense of certainty, and a lot of sadness and disappointment when they inevitably fail to deliver the promised fairy-tale ending. Every company has its own unique challenges and opportunities. The specific practices that work for one company may not work for another, even if that company appears to be wildly successful.
Key concept: Useful fictions can help move us forward when the ambiguity and complexity of product management become overwhelming. And recognizing that they are in fact fictions helps us adapt “best practices” to meet the particular needs of our teams and organizations.
8. The Wonderful, Horrible Truth About Agile
Agile, at its heart, is a set of values rather than a prescriptive set of practices. The value of those values (collaboration, communication, and continuous learning) is that they strengthen the connective work of product management. But this means that Agile success is never absolute or final. There will always be room for improvement in the ways in which you are implementing Agile frameworks, methods, and processes, and continuously reflecting upon and improving those things is itself an Agile practice.
Key concept: Individuals and interactions over processes and tools Working software over comprehensive documentation Customer collaboration over contract negotiation Responding to change over following a plan That is, while there is value in the items on the right, we value the items on the left more.
9. The Infinite Time Suck of Documentation (and Yes, Roadmaps Are Documentation)
Documentation is an essential part of the product manager’s job, but focusing too much on creating ‘impressive’ documentation can distract you from the far more important work of building great products. When creating roadmaps, product specs, or other documentation, remember that the ultimate goal is to help your team make better decisions, not to impress your colleagues with how much you’ve accomplished or how many hours you’ve worked.
Key concept: “The menu is not the meal.”
10. Vision, Mission, Objectives, Strategy, and Other Fancy Words
The most effective product strategies start by answering simple questions: Who is your user? What problem are you helping them solve? Why are you the right company to help them solve that problem? The more simply, directly, and collaboratively you can answer these questions with your team, the better equipped they will be to make good decisions. And if your strategy can effectively justify building anything for anybody, then it is probably not a very good strategy.
Key concept: “Good strategy is almost always…simple and obvious and does not take a thick deck of PowerPoint slides to explain.”
11. “Data, Take the Wheel!”
Good data can help you make better decisions, but an overreliance on data can lead to paralysis, self-doubt, and ultimately, the abandonment of good ideas that could deliver real value to your users and your business. Rather than starting from the data you wish you had, start from the specific decisions you need to make, then see if you can find the best data you can to help inform those decisions.
Key concept: “What decisions could we make if we had all the information we need?”
12. Prioritization: Where It All Comes Together
Prioritization can be one of the most overwhelming aspects of the product manager’s job. In this process, every insight, metric, goal, and constraint comes together, sometimes in a messy, confusing, and contradictory way. Don’t expect all these things to line up perfectly—instead, work with your team to decide which things are most important to focus on in order to make the best decision you can in that particular moment.
Key concept: Not every layer of the cake is necessarily delicious, nor does every layer of the cake complement the adjacent layers. Some layers might be particularly sweet and fluffy; others might be dry and crumbly. It is your job, with every decision you make, to figure out which layers are worth reaching for in this particular bite.
13. Try This at Home: The Trials and Tribulations of Remote Work
The ways in which we work together have changed dramatically in recent years, and these changes have been accelerated by the adoption of remote and distributed work. Effective product management necessitates clear, consistent, and well-documented answers to questions about how your team works together and makes decisions. This may feel like micromanagement to some, but in the absence of such agreements, even the simplest interactions can become needlessly complicated and anxiety provoking.
Key concept: The word that comes up most frequently in my conversations with distributed product teams navigating synchronous communication is ‘intentional.’ As in, ‘You have to be really intentional about the way you structure and facilitate your team’s time together.’
14. A Manager Among Product Managers (The Product Leadership Chapter)
If you are seeking a product leadership role, you will be asked to demonstrate not only that you are good at product management but also that you understand how product leadership is different from product management. Effective product leadership is about developing the people around you, removing roadblocks to their success, and supporting them in their own growth and development. It is often about unlearning the behaviors that led to your own success as an individual contributor and adopting new behaviors that will help you achieve success as part of a team.
Key concept: What could the company accomplish with you in a promoted position that it cannot accomplish now?
15. In Good Times and Bad
In the long run, successful products are exceptionally rare. For both established and newly launched products, there will be times when the work of product management feels impossibly difficult. During times like these, it can be very tempting to succumb to ‘hero product manager’ fantasies. But remember that success is ultimately a team effort, and that the more you can involve your team in decision making, the more successful your product—and your team—will be.
Key concept: Product managers are in the middle, the actions you take are likely to be outsized in their impact. As the informal ambassador between your team and the rest of the organization, you can set the tone for how people communicate with one another, listen to one another, and demonstrate respect for one another’s time and perspective. And during tumultuous times, you can choose to be the fearless protector of the very best things about your team and your company.
Essential Questions
1. What is the real-world practice of product management?
Product management is about the practice of connecting various perspectives (user needs, business goals, technical feasibility, etc.) to create and deliver valuable products. The day-to-day work involves constant communication, support, and facilitation, often requiring a “whatever it takes” attitude. A product manager is responsible for their product’s success but rarely has direct authority, necessitating collaboration and influence.
2. What are the essential skills of a successful product manager?
The CORE skills of product management – Communication, Organization, Research, and Execution – are essential for success in this role. Communication prioritizes clarity over comfort, organization aims to create self-sustaining systems, research focuses on understanding the user’s reality, and execution emphasizes achieving desired outcomes. These skills help navigate the ambiguity and cross-functional nature of the product manager’s role.
3. What is the problem with relying too heavily on “best practices”?
While best practices can be useful starting points, they should not be followed blindly. Every company and product team is unique, and what works for one may not work for another. Over-reliance on best practices can stifle innovation and lead to a lack of adaptability in a rapidly changing world. Instead, focus on continuous learning, experimentation, and adapting practices to the specific needs of your team and organization.
4. How can a product leader effectively empower their team to do its best work?
It is crucial to understand that the value you bring as a product manager is manifest in the work of your team, not just your own individual efforts. By prioritizing your team’s success, facilitating open communication, and providing clear guidance and support, you empower them to do their best work. This, in turn, leads to better outcomes for your users and the business.
5. How can a product manager effectively work with senior stakeholders?
Working with senior stakeholders can be challenging, requiring careful navigation of power dynamics and information asymmetry. It is essential to approach conversations with a focus on informing rather than influencing, providing options and highlighting trade-offs. Remember that senior stakeholders are people too, with their own goals, priorities, and blind spots. Understanding their perspective and building trust is crucial for successful collaboration.
Key Takeaways
1. Prioritize clarity over comfort in your communication.
This is especially crucial in situations that trigger defensiveness. By focusing on clarifying shared goals and exploring various options, you can avoid yes-no battles and create a more collaborative environment.
Practical Application:
For example, instead of telling a designer “I don’t like this color,” a product manager could say, “I understand we’re aiming for a feeling of trust and security with this design. Could we explore some other color palettes that might better evoke those feelings?”
2. Make yourself obsolete.
Instead of constantly having to unblock your team, empower them with the information and processes they need to operate effectively without your direct intervention. This not only makes your team more efficient, it frees you up to focus on more strategic work.
Practical Application:
For example, if a team is consistently struggling with unclear requests from stakeholders, a product manager could work with the team to create a clear and concise intake form that captures essential information for each request.
3. Live in your user’s reality.
Step out of your assumptions and spend time understanding how your users actually use your product and how it fits into their broader needs and goals. This means doing user research, observing user behavior, and continuously seeking out opportunities to learn directly from your users.
Practical Application:
For example, a product manager working on an AI-powered chatbot could spend time shadowing customer support agents to understand how users interact with the current system, what frustrations they encounter, and what unmet needs they have.
4. Focus on outcomes, not just output.
Instead of getting caught up in the day-to-day tasks, start with a clear understanding of the desired business and user outcomes and then ruthlessly prioritize everything you do toward achieving those outcomes. This might mean taking on tasks that are not traditionally considered ‘product management’ but are critical for the success of your team and product.
Practical Application:
For example, if a team’s goal is to increase user engagement, they might experiment with different onboarding flows, new feature prompts, or even changes to the product’s UI/UX to see what drives the desired outcome. This approach shifts the focus from the effort put into specific tasks to the actual impact achieved.
Suggested Deep Dive
Chapter: Chapter 6: Talking to Users
For an AI product engineer, understanding how to conduct effective user research is essential. This chapter provides valuable insights into how to talk to users, ask the right questions, and avoid common pitfalls. The emphasis on ‘playing dumb’ and resisting the urge to provide solutions is particularly relevant for those working with complex technologies.
Memorable Quotes
What is Not Product Management?. 30
That trust can be easily squandered if you carry yourself like a big important boss.
No, You Don’t Have to Work 60 Hours a Week to Be a Product Manager. 36
For product managers, the value you create will be largely manifest in the work of your team. The best product managers I’ve met are those who truly believe that their team’s success is their own success.
Taking a Genuine Interest. 61
“I’m curious to learn more about the work that you do,” is the most powerful sentence at your disposal as a product manager, whether it’s your first day or you’ve been working in the field for decades.
Asking the Obvious. 78
“Good product managers err on the side of clarity versus explaining the obvious. Bad product managers never explain the obvious.”
Stakeholders and Users Are Different. 144
Successfully talking to and learning from users requires product managers to actively resist the temptation to provide concrete answers and specific solutions.
Comparative Analysis
This book stands out for its focus on the human and practical elements of product management, offering a fresh perspective in a field saturated with books focused on theoretical frameworks and tools. Unlike more process-oriented guides, LeMay emphasizes the importance of adaptability, emotional intelligence, and interpersonal skills, acknowledging the unpredictable and often messy nature of the work. This aligns with the ideas explored in books like “Inspired” by Marty Cagan and “Strong Product People” by Petra Wille, which also champion strong communication, user-centricity, and continuous learning. However, LeMay goes a step further by explicitly addressing the emotional labor of product management and offering tactical advice for navigating common anxieties and pitfalls. The book’s emphasis on managing up and working effectively with senior stakeholders also sets it apart, providing practical advice that resonates with the challenges described in “Escaping the Build Trap” by Melissa Perri.
Reflection
LeMay’s book offers a refreshingly candid and practical approach to product management, grounded in real-world experiences and challenges. However, its focus on human aspects could be seen as understating the role of data and technical expertise in certain contexts. While emphasizing the importance of understanding user needs, the book might benefit from deeper exploration of how data analysis and quantitative research can inform product decisions, especially within AI-driven product development.
While advocating for open communication and vulnerability, the book could also delve deeper into strategies for navigating conflict and managing difficult personalities, which are inevitable in any collaborative environment. This is especially relevant for AI product engineers who often work within complex technical environments and interact with diverse stakeholders. Despite these potential limitations, the book’s focus on building trust, fostering curiosity, and prioritizing outcomes over output resonates strongly with the increasing emphasis on human-centered design and AI safety in the tech industry. The book’s insights are valuable not only for product managers but for anyone working in technology who seeks to build better products and foster more collaborative and effective teams.
Flashcards
What is the guiding principle for Communication?
Clarity over comfort
What is the guiding principle for Organization?
Make yourself obsolete.
What is the guiding principle for Research?
Live in your user’s reality.
What is the guiding principle for Execution?
All efforts in service of outcomes.
What is the key principle for successful communication?
Err on the side of being too clear rather than too vague.
How should you approach difficult conversations with colleagues?
Assume positive intent and focus on outcomes rather than intentions.
What is a product roadmap?
A strategic communication document, not a hard-and-fast plan for what will be executed and when.
What is a more effective way to think about the relationship between outcomes and output?
Output in service of outcomes.