Whenever I see a great product, I really get thrilled to think about product managers who designed the product. A product manager puts a lot of creativity and thinking to come up with a novel working product. Products such as Smart TV, iPhone and MS office require great insights to understand user needs and behavior. Even small things such as a link on Google page or Log in sound in windows are well thought by a product manager to come up with right experience. Today small things make big impact and product managers take great pains to read the minds of the users.
Here, I want to put forward a point that even great product managers can't create experiences that customers love, without support of creative and dedicated teams. I give you here 3 sure shot ideas to kill any creative product experience and frustrate the product manager and hence the users:
1. Merge the Product Management and Project Management Functions and assign these to one guy: It seems very cost effective and logical solution to merge the product management and project management functions and assign both to one person. Merging the product management and project management functions is like asking the user to create the product that user wants. It seems a novel idea to give the product manager a chance to implement his/her own ideas. This idea is dangerous to the core and product manager has to play the role of project manager too. Project manager faces many challenges in day to day job and is more concerned in meeting the deadlines and shipping the products. Now Product manager who is doubling as project manager has a chance to meet deadlines by cutting features and shipping half baked products.
2. Divide a product into multiple components and make the ownership collective
A child can't have multiple fathers. Same way, a product can not have multiple owners. When we apply conquer and win in a wrong way to develop products, we are actually creating multiple fathers for a child. Ego clashes is not only common but also very destructive and features are decided by the loudest voice in the room. Everybody is worried about his or her own components. All components seem to work well but when we integrate, product becomes a jigsaw puzzle. Users are don't want a puzzle. They are looking for solution their problems. Believe me, nobody wants to buy a problem.
3. Focus on process and tracking goals and forget about purpose of process
Processes are great way of creating beautiful products if we really care for their purpose. We mostly follow processes to document and show to our management that we are following process. We become slave of processes and behave like clerks who blindly writes what boss orders. At the end of the day, everybody gets great appraisal and product is shipped to die. Great products are not built in a factory. They are built in a open environment where creativity thrives.
