Series: Maximizing Product Management Potential — An Overview

We repeatedly experience product teams that do not fully develop their potential even under good conditions. They are subject to one or more widespread pitfalls without really noticing them. Which makes it important to recognize these shortcomings in order to avoid them in the second step. We start with an overview:

The complex of craftsmanship related issues

• Focus on output instead of results — when efforts made are celebrated and rewarded instead of achieved outcomes.
• Solution focus instead of problem focus — when the focus is not on evaluating real problems, but on developing functionalities
• Focus on efficiency instead of effectiveness — When the focus is on speed of implementation instead of effectiveness of actions.
• Lack of goal alignment in the organization — When business-, product-, department-, team-, and personal objectives are not aligned.

The complex of decision-making issues

• No or poor vision — Companies and products do not transform with the market, but remain trapped in the current successful business model.
• Decision making is left to the boss — When lack of expertise or responsibility, fear or other factors mean product decisions are not made by the product team.
• Decision making without validation — When authority, cognitive biases, lack of expertise, or other factors result in assumptions not being adequately validated.
• Decisions are negotiated — When instead of research, facts, and strategies, decisions are reached as a compromise between responsible parties in the organization.
• Too high decision making velocity — When plans change faster than there is the ability to implement them.

The complex of method related issues

• Incorrect or misleading metrics or derivations — Decisions based on facts are only correct if data and derivations themselves prove to be accurate.
• Caught in the optimization dilemma — Continuous optimization on the existing with low impact instead of changing relevant levers with high impact.
• Analysis paralysis — When research, clarification of requirements, analysis, prototyping, testing and other preliminary work leave too little time for execution related activities.

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First published on medium by Traian Kaiser