What's the most challenging aspect of product management and how do you tackle it?

Question

As a product manager, you are responsible for driving the success of a product. It's a challenging role that requires a unique set of skills and a deep understanding of customer needs.

Let's discuss the most challenging aspect of product management, whether it's prioritizing features, managing stakeholders, or balancing short-term and long-term goals, and share how we tackle these challenges.

Grace Hur · Accepted Answer

Seed-stage, solo PM here! 🙋‍♀️ Rather than prioritizing features, it's about prioritizing problems. Then, it's about aligning stakeholders to what THE problem to solve is. Not everyone will have the same visibility to the problems ahead, and will have opinions on what problems are the most important based on what they know (we can be guilty of making decisions with insufficient info too). So, the challenge for us is: * How do we pull in all the important insights to see the full picture * Decipher which problem we need to solve first and ensuring it's what users want, will use, benefits the business, and is feasible with our internal resources. * Aligning stakeholders Alex Hood (CPO @ Asana) wrote this beautiful article about "The 8 rules for co-creation". And I think he hits the nail on the head on how we can tackle these challenges. Co-creation should NOT include: ❌ Seeking consensus ❌ Decision by committee ❌ Exhaustively inclusive ❌ Negotiation or compromise ❌ Method used to get buy-in Co-creation should include: ✅ Seeking input in service of the outcome ✅ Considering diverse perspectives in ideation ✅ Curated participation based on expertise (Source: https://theworkback.com/8-rules-...)

Aida Zu · Answer

@gracehur thanks for sharing, this is gold

mapname · Answer

Hello, great question for me the most challenging part is to drop existing features that may mislead users from the essence of the product, such decision require utilizing observability tools and reading the correct metrics on what is working and what is not

Grace Hur · Answer

@aidai_zu The pleasure is all mine! 🧚‍♀️

Pavel Kukhnavets · Answer

One of the most challenging aspects of product management is strategic planning. Planning in product management involves defining objectives, prioritizing tasks, allocating resources, managing risks, fostering communication, gathering feedback, and ensuring adaptability to guide successful product development. To succeed in this field, you need modern and powerful strategic planning software.

Priyank Chodisetti · Answer

At a slightly later stage company where the PM hasn't been there from the beginning, understanding the existing product, problems, and customers is the biggest problem. I often see PMs jumping and proposing large features without even understanding what exists.

Antoni Kozelski · Answer

@gracehur That's good advice. Co-creation ensures everyone's input is heard and that decisions are not just made by one person. It's also important to make sure that everyone is working toward the same goal.

Antoni Kozelski · Answer

@jareer_samad Good point. Talking to customers can be a great way to get feedback on what features they would find most useful. It's also important to focus on the core features that will move the needle the most

Antoni Kozelski · Answer

That's a great question! Prioritizing features can be a difficult challenge, as there are often many competing demands and limited resources. When making decisions, it's important to focus on creating value for the customer and prioritize features that will make the biggest impact. Also use data, customer feedback, and market trends to inform your decisions.

Jareer Samad · Answer

For early stage founders like me, prioritizing features and eliminating ideas to work on is a big challenge. What I have been trying to do is to have conversations with prospective customers to find the most viable feature to work on.

What's the most challenging aspect of product management and how do you tackle it?

Replies