What challenges do you face in product management?

Aligning stakeholder is the toughest part of product management, especially if you have running business with millions of users. Following these strategies can help one manage stakeholder well: 1️⃣ Identify your stakeholders early and understand their problem areas and goals (💡 If you have too many, map stakeholders on a DACI matrix (similar to RACI) to understand who are your key stakeholder) 2️⃣ Co-create a clear, concise goal for the product or feature that your stakeholders align with 3️⃣ Provide regular, transparent updates on the product's progress, challenges, and next steps 4️⃣ Document discussions and decisions and keep leadership informed

I have seen several challenges. Prioritizing projects can be complex, as it involves balancing competing interests and ensuring alignment with goals. Decision-making can be slow, often requiring extensive data analysis and stakeholder consensus. Managing and securing the necessary resources, whether it's budget, personnel, or technology, is a constant challenge. While adapting to changing strategies is part of the role, it can be difficult to pivot quickly without disrupting ongoing projects. To handle these challenges, I think it’s important to focus on clear communication, setting realistic priorities, and fostering a flexible mindset. Emphasizing agility and maintaining a customer-centric approach helps navigate these obstacles.

For me the top challenges in Product Manager are - Aligning stakeholders towards a common goal based on strategic themes - Trying to prioritise 100 requirements when only have bandwidth for only 10 requirements in the PI - Getting the team to think and innovate when everyone is focussed on completing features - To summarize to get the team to focus on outcomes rather to output

In my experience this is the most toughest part in a B2C product organization with 20+ key stakeholders (C-suite and Heads) in addition to the numerous end user groups. Therefore I had to conduct requirement refinement and prioritization sessions on a bi-weekly basis with them, in order to prevent any last minute chaos before the delivery scope deadline is freeze.

When it comes to validating assumptions, it's crucial to strike a balance between thorough validation and timely delivery. Not all assumptions require the same level of validation, and the approach should be tailored to the specific situation. Ultimately, the key point is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to validating assumptions. Product managers should assess the specific circumstances and objectives of each project, weighing the investment required against the potential benefits. By doing so, they can determine the most appropriate level of validation and strike the right balance between speed and rigor in decision-making.

In my experience, best way to validate assumptions - data driven. So you formulate hypothesis and then depending on them there could be different approaches: - check existing data and try to validate it - make qualitative research (like deep interviews, prototype testing, or corridor research) - if non of the above is not possible or not enough do AB testing and get real data. From experience first two are way cheaper and faster, but you cant always rely on results because they are not representative enough or you just do not have the specific data you need. A/B testing is great but more time and money consuming.

What made your successful three years ago is different. Product management is a fast moving and dynamic realm, brimming with challenges. Be specific in what you focus on as the skills and challenges are so different. - Product maturity matters – nurturing nascent products amid ambiguity or refining established ones for relevance. - B2B vs. B2C have such different dynamics. Like the intricate client understanding in B2B vs. crafting user experiences in B2C. - Implementations add layers of integration and change management pressure. - Balancing stakeholder interests and team dynamics. Amidst this tapestry, you have to weave solutions that harmonize user needs, market trends, and business goals. It is a tough but rewarding.

A common mistake PM make is assuming everything needs to be validated to be built, and that is not true. There is a balance between size and investment of a bet, and how formal validation needs to be. If scope and cost can be minimized, shipping quickly and looking at feature performance is often better than running a full-fledge validation process. Now if it’s a one-way door decision, large investment or a high-risk launch, then validation, prototyping, user testing guarantees that, given the existing data within a fast timeline, a strong decision is made. In the end your best approach is building the minimum required to deliver value quickly so you learn sooner, and iterate quicker.

The reason this is so challenging is because many stakeholders will have a feature factory mindset: they believe that the features we will deliver are guaranteed to deliver value. If that's the case, our main job is to get them out of the door reliably and swiftly. And when you focus on this, there is no room for discovery and validation. We should treat every feature as innocent of delivering value until we have evidence to hand over that it's otherwise.

I believe that flexibility is fundamental in managing scope and resources. Product managers are typically planning requirements in a much earlier stage of development and often is during development (high level/low level designs) that the easiness or hardship of certain requirements will surface. Having a strong relationship with tech teams and a basic understanding of what systems do what makes a huge difference in my experience. Another thing that helps a lot is keeping track of planned vs realized in terms of scope and resources so that you can incorporate lessons learned moving forward.

Resource management is a big problem when there is a constant change with the team structure in this uncertain times. As a Product manager you need to be frugal when it comes to utilizing your resources. Other aspect is ruthless prioritization of features based on user needs, value proposition and effort estimation or any other framework. Keep the stakeholders well informed of the priorities although there will be scope creep due to production issue, immediate leadership request, consumer changing needs, etc. As a PM you need to prioritize those changing needs by centering the user needs, strategy and alignment with your mission. Keep an eye on north star, guardrails, risks and quality overall as you need to manage tradeoffs.

This is the tricky part, cause most of the stakeholders want to build an airplane while there is no sufficient resources to build a bicycle. As a product owner you should focus on building MVP first specially if it’s a new domain or the assumptions are not yet validated and the requirements keeps on changing. Start with something solid then build up the product till it’s actually functional, this way you will avoid rework and team burnout.

Every problem that a PM tries to solve can demand varying amounts of effort. For example, you want to improve customer satisfaction for a certain segment or type of queries. The solution to the problem in an ideal world would be addressing issues proactively through data and systems, but to make this happen you might need to have quite a few things in place. So what do you do? First determine an immediate fix to address a large part of problem and in parallel scope it out, identify development needed, and phase out the work by prioritising. If it involves other products or sprints, inform well in advance and always logically reason and discuss with peers to determine priority basis impact. Keep it simple through first principles thinking.

To make informed choices, it's essential to start by thoroughly understanding the product context and objectives. Assess the priorities of stakeholders, customer expectations, and market dynamics. Once the landscape is clear, engage in transparent and collaborative discussions with the cross-functional team to gather input and diverse perspectives. Identify potential trade-offs by mapping out scenarios and their respective implications on the product's success. Utilize data and analytics to quantify the impact of these choices whenever possible. Finally, choose a balanced approach that aligns with the project's strategic goals, taking into consideration the long-term sustainability of the product and the organization's overall mission.

The best rules to stay ahead of the curve are 1) obsess with customers. Find the magical details that will awe them, faster than competitors do. 2) Focus maniacally on your AHA moment, and innovate specifically there. Ask how you can deliver that AHA faster, more frequently and cheaper. 3) experiment ambitiously. The most talented people want to build cool stuff, or they leave for companies building cooler things. Without talent it’s hard to stay ahead of the curve. Prioritizing cool things isn’t easy when stakeholders are demanding obvious stuff or bugs are popping up. But it’s necessary.

I've found it helpful to set aside a bit of time each week just to dive into the latest in our industry. Subscribing to a few top-notch newsletters and catching a webinar here and there has been a game-changer for me. And you know, just chatting with fellow leaders in product management over coffee or a virtual meet-up can offer so much insight. I also love hosting brainstorming sessions with my team every few months. It's all about staying curious and adaptable, isn't it?

Staying ahead of the curve is a key challenge in product management. It requires continuous learning to keep up with the latest trends, technologies, and best practices. Product managers must also monitor the competitive landscape to identify opportunities and threats, while consistently innovating and differentiating their products. Staying informed and adaptable is essential to maintaining a competitive edge and enhancing product management capabilities.

Staying ahead requires lots of time spent doing nothing but writing ideas down and then aligning with the data/metrics available to try and forecast the potential outcome of your next steps for the product. What can help in the process is checking out trade shows and conferences where the competitors or some brilliant startups that haven't become a competitor yet will display their latest developments. What is your role there? Not trying to copy what you like, but trying to predict the next move for the product or feature that you liked. You certainly want to make that move before your competitor does!

Building anticipation as an instinct is a learned skill. You can accelerate the path through 1) building domain knowledge, and 2) by aggressively taking opportunities to build your “edge case library.” An edge case library is a mental stock of unusual circumstances tied to an understanding of what triggered those edge case moments. In short, you get 80-90% of the sense of the general domain very quickly if you study, but truly excellent anticipation requires mastering progressively more of the fine detail in your space through edge cases. It can take years, and this is why PM’s tend to specialize in verticals over time.

The best product leaders (and any leader) know that their mission is about empowering and accelerating their teams. It’s about building the machine that builds the machine (ie the product). I believe a leader’s mission is to make their team love Mondays so they can sleep sound on Sundays. When teams feel powered up, mentally healthy, psychological safe and challenged, they will make better, faster decisions, leading to stronger, more reliable products. Last, great leaders empathize with the typical overwhelming environment of their teams because they’ve been there, so they invest time designing the process and tools to create harmony amongst chaos.

Without team, a PM is nothing but without PM there is no Team. Unless both parties understand this, its a hard game. A PM as a leader should have zero Ego within the team and full scale 'get it done' attitude whatever be the situation. Now PM is not going to be a top person in a company hierarchy but he is the go-to person even for the topmost in the hierarchy. So better be one.

The legendary Bill Campbell defined leadership as "Its about recognising that there is greatness in everyone, and your job is to create an environment where that greatness can emerge" Whethewr you are leading your product team by influence, or you are leading a group of PMs by hierarchy, the rule still applies, try to benchmark this value and map your skills to it then identify what would be the improvement areas you need to focus on

You need to develop and improve your leadership skills, such as communication, collaboration, decision making, and problem solving. You need to lead and motivate your product team, and foster a culture of trust, feedback, and learning. You need to grow your network and influence.

Developing professional skills as a leader applies in any profession. One of the common challenges for a product manager is time crunch. You can see the calendar is overloaded with meetings. Then how does a PM work and do analysis. Being a leader, you need to be disciplined, organised and ready to help the team when there is any challenge ahead. - Ability to motivate team members - Ability to influence stakeholders - Ability to say "No" for a request - Ability to take risks and make a bold decision - Being assertive, good listener and maintaining a good relationship with team This helps a PM to perform the day to day tasks despite the calendar being blocked throughout the day.

The #1 challenge I hear about is: Executives! Executives with pet ideas, who got excited by the last customer conversation, who read an article about a new tech capability - and think the product team should pursue that idea. Executives who don't believe the timelines the product and engineering team gave them, or worse who say things like: "when we were a company of 15 people we would stay up all night and just get this done." Executives who cancel headcount or move people around in yet another re-org while expecting the product to be delivered based on timelines developed with those resources. PMs need to learn how to effectively communicate with and push back on executives without succumbing to becoming frustrated or "yes-people."

In my experience, one other piece that is critical to the role of product management is - 'Communication'. With the hybrid world, every stakeholder need for communication might be different. Say one might prefer email discussion vs some others preferring available chat or call based communication. Thus, developing communication preference need for RACI (responsible, accountable, consulted, informed) is more important than ever.

To be honest, my experience which is spread across many industries and tech types have all had the same issue. And that is the understanding of what the Product Management function actually is, I don't mean this from the occupier of the role, but from those within the business with whom that person interacts. There are roles which require the PM to act as the sole keeper of the tech development, pipeline, P&L, marketing and many more, and others essentially a market analysis role with no direct responsibility. Some are mislabelled and are in fact project management. It's more a lack of clarity on the role from the business leadership which in most cases I've spent time redefining. Know your strengths and align the role with them! 👍

Two additional factors that has helped me over the years. 1. Always Looking at a product through the customer's eyes . sounds simple, but I have caught myself letting my biases interfere with the decision making. While testing the hypothesis with customers is the best way to avoid these biases, we still need to form that initial hypothesis from our understanding of the product and at times, we may be at a time crunch to perform these tests. So the closer we are to reality with the initial hypothesis, the easier it is to validate. 2. Being the true voice of the customer in the organisation. At times, we struggle with too many opinions in a subject and it has to be the role of the product manager to represent the customer voice.

I would like to mention the challenges as follows - 1. Exercising control without authority 2. Getting job done with limited means 3. Appear to be know-all without specialization 4. Share the blame during fingers pointing 5. Manage others egos & interests while keeping one's own at bay 6. Put out fires without burning bridges and hands