Understanding Product Management starts with a simple solution: listening to what other product managers have to share. Listen particularly to people whom are able to back up their understanding with concise examples backed by many eons of experiences. In this week’s article, I wanted to share with you all readers a video i’ve watched awhile ago by Dave Wascha when I just got started in my product management journey.

1. Listen to customers
   Listen to their problems

2. Do not listen to customers
   Do not listen to their solution. That is your job as PM.

3. Watch your competition
   Much signal comes from your competitor’s product launch.
   People may also make reviews of it.

4. Do not watch your competition
   Do they understand and solve the problems your customers have? Or is that just a noviety solution. Not many people will use it.

5. Be a thief
   Steal ideas that are better than yours. Tailor it to your customers. Your job is to solve problems not to create new solutions.

6. Get paid

Ask the right questions. Find out their willingness to pay for this product.
Taking something free and charging for it.

From your product feature launches, do not convey that you are just trying to solve your own problems.
Do not convey that youre charging because you are trying hard & not because you are trying to solve their problems.

7. Stop worrying about getting paid

Avoid systematic risk aversion through the rigid process of business use-cases.

Make them heard. It can be small gestures to show that you know them.

Don’t take ourselves too seriously. And we have a sense of humor.
Did they have to do that? (Putting floss into the bag of jerkies)
We have to appeal to their emotional & social needs.

8. Speed up

The amount of value destroyed through inaction. We are always limited by the dollar sign etc.
The cost of not doing something. To learn something. To learn that we are right. More importantly, to learn that we are wrong.

• Cost of Delay
  The longer it takes to go to market, the less value it has.
  Some reasons could be: Don’t have enough information, the key personnel is not around.
  The more you wait, the loss of value is higher.

9. Say no

Your job is to protect the customer, not to protect the team.
Say no for the right reason.

10. Don’t be a visionary

Be obsesses to understanding the customer’s problems and solving it.

• Don’t confuse yourself with customers.

A PM that thinks he knows the customer is like a male geotheology

11. Be Dumb!

Not encumbent with knowledge or iteria
Easily turn to solve our problem and not the user’s problem. Always bring the customer’s perspective back into the conversation.

Product management is a mindset.