Ask A Good Product Manager

Ask A Good Product Manager provides real answers to your real product management questions. Ask a question, get a response from an experienced product manager, and hear what others have to say.

Question: What is more important to success — a good product or good executive management team?

Answer from Nick Coster of brainmates: Keep reading →

Question: How do I find potential customers to interview?

I am a new product manager working on developing a new product. One thing that I am struggling with as a product manager is how to get out there and set up time with potential buyers / users who would fit within my product demographic. Since I don’t have an existing product, I can’t interview current customers, since there aren’t any. I am trying to find ways of being able to reach out to the target market segment without coming across as too “salesy” and in a manner that is approachable and efficient.

I know that understanding the market first-hand is an important part of being a product manager, but I’m not sure of exactly the right approach. What are some methods I can use to identify potential customers and users?

Answer from Jeff Lash of How To Be A Good Product Manager: Keep reading →

Question: Should the Product Manager care about just their product, or the enablement service that supports it too?

I’m a product manager in a services organization. As a “product manager,” should I be responsible for just the elements which go into the “product” which we’re selling, or do I need to worry about all of the other pieces which are part of the customer experience?

Answer from Derek Britton, Independent Product Management consultant: Keep reading →

Question: How does a product manager for a specific vertical (industry) translate their requirements to portfolio requirements and influence their organization to fulfill those requirements?

Answer from Mara Krieps of Pivotal Product Management: Keep reading →

Question: Do product managers really manage products, or just develop new ones?

If you have the title of product manager, but all you do is launch new products, does that make you in fact a product developer / project manager, rather than a product manager? After all, many of the same skills are required for product management and product development — e.g. understanding user requirements / needs.

Answer from Adrienne Tan of brainmates: Keep reading →

Question: How should I handle requests that my requirements documents include all features, not just new ones?

I recently joined an organization that develops software for life sciences, a highly regulated industry. As a vendor in this vertical, we are constantly audited by clients for our quality practices in software development. We are about to launch a new product line and the question of Product Requirement Documents have come into play. Our Quality Management team has asked my team to continue carrying requirements from older product releases into the PRD for the next product release version. My software product management career has typically involved writing “delta” PRDs – the net-new features that are going into the product, rather than one large document that covers 100% of the new product’s functionality. This is the case where the PRD serves as an internal communication tool with Engineering and Marketing but also an outward facing document that may get audited by multiple clients. Has anyone worked with writing requirements that carry 100% of the functionality forward with each new software release PRD?

Answer from Tom Leung of Always Be Shipping: Keep reading →

Question: How do I start a product management role within a company that has never had one?

I’ve been hired by a software company to be their first Product Manager. There is no product manager today, and each part of the job is done either by engineers, sales, marketing, QA, etc.

What would be the first steps to establish the product manager role within the company and bring value while learning products and context?

Answer from Mara Krieps of Pivotal Product Management: Keep reading →

Question: Do product managers of technical products really need to be technical?

I am a Project Manager by trade, but have recently got a new job as a Product Manager, working on an existing product in a new company. I enjoyed working as a Project Manager, but one of the issues I had was it was quite a technical role, and I don’t really enjoy that, even though I am working on online products.

My new role had zero technical questions in the interview, but my question is this: How technical do you think a Product Manager should be?

Answer from Derek Morrison of All About Product Management: Keep reading →

Question: What is the difference between a good product manager and a great product manager?

Answer from Greg Cohen of 280 Group: Keep reading →

Question: If the whole idea of good product management is about effectively being the “CEO of a product,” then why do so few CEOs seem to come from product management?

Answer from Derek Britton, Independent Product Management consultant: Keep reading →