Are you recently promoted to a Product Manager position? - Here are a few pitfalls to avoid
Ignorance endangers value creation
Over the years, the product manager role has become more and more popular. This is greatly explained by a shift in focus from project thinking to product thinking. Instead of ensuring a certain output is delivered according to plan (without knowing if the output will generate the intended value), organizations focus on creating value through their products. Value is front, left and centre in their decisions. As a result, the world needs more product managers and fewer project managers.
But the world of a freshly promoted product manager is one of many potential pitfalls. In this article, I will highlight two of the most common ones, including tips to avoid them.
Dunning-Kruger effect
The Dunning–Kruger effect is a cognitive bias in which people with limited competence in a particular domain overestimate their abilities. - Wikipedia
One of the worst mistakes freshly promoted product managers can make is to believe they were promoted to their role because of their product management skills.
Entirely different role
Product managers are typically promoted to their positions from entirely different roles. I know many product managers who used to be project managers, business analysts, engineers or product owners (or more precisely, team backlog or component owners because sadly the true nature of the product owner is widely misunderstood).
These people became product managers because they either excelled in their jobs, warranting a promotion or their old position became obsolete. The reason was never that they were excellent in product management.
The biggest mistake these newly promoted product managers can make is thinking the role is very similar to their previous roles. They might think this because they did something in their previous role that they need to do as product manager to:
Project managers ensure people collaborate to execute a plan to successful completion.
Business analysts know how to understand the context of a need and turn it into requirements.
Engineers know how to build a product.
Product owners know how to create and maintain a backlog and work with teams to ensure the items from the backlog are built and delivered in the right order. Yes, I know what a product owner should do (maximize the value of their product, actually being a product manager), but most product owners I have seen are not doing this. On top of that, I have engaged with many people in the Agile space who recognize this issue. These types of product owners lack much of the knowledge and experience to be product managers.
All of them miss the mark. The product manager role often is entirely different and far broader in scope. The shift in approach from project to product is a major one. When done well, it impacts the entire organization, from top to bottom.
Organizations need to tear down their old structures and build new ones to foster collaboration on maximizing the impact of their product. On top of that, people need to unlearn project thinking and embrace product thinking.
Product managers have a leadership role in a product-centric organization. This requires many skills and a lot of knowledge they did not need in their previous role. A failure to see this not only kills the effectiveness of the product managers but also the effectiveness of everyone involved in creating and sustaining the product.
Dunning-Kruger echo chamber
It gets worse when the Dunning-Kruger effect impacts their direct colleagues (too). Before you know it, you are in an echo chamber of uninformed people who all believe they know what product management is about. I have seen this situation multiple times. It never ended well.
It is just as bad when new product managers recognize their inexperience and contact their colleagues to help them grow in their roles. This is only helpful when their product management colleagues have the right skills themselves. As stated, it is not uncommon that their colleagues don’t have this knowledge and the skills, feeding the new product managers with false information.
How to avoid the Dunning-Kruger effect
Regardless of how experienced you think you are, challenge yourself and verify your knowledge. Read, study and learn. With the understanding of being incomplete, here are some great sources for product management content:
Maarten Dalmijn’s book Driving Value through Sprint Goals
Maarten Dalmijn’s newsletter
Paweł Huryn’s newsletter: The Product Compass with Paweł
David Pereira’s newsletter: Untrapping Product Teams
On top of that, I recommend finding out if your organization has a product management learning path. I also encourage you to join or facilitate a product management community of practice to allow for shared learning and growth.
Peter Principle
The Peter principle is a concept in management developed by Laurence J. Peter which observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to “a level of respective incompetence” - Wikipedia
Not everyone is equipped or suited to be a product manager. It is a demanding role that calls for different skills and traits than roles like project manager, engineer or business analyst.
People who recognize themselves according to Peter's principle are already on their way to solving the situation. They are self-aware. However, this is not enough in itself. It also calls for an organization with a learning culture, where it is considered to be a good thing to learn from the actions they have taken. Where people don’t lose face when they admit they may not be suited for a certain role. This in turn calls for a safe working environment with a high level of trust.
Also, the organisation should offer these people alternative opportunities. Careers don’t always have to go up the ladder. For example, some people may be better off with opportunities to grow as experts in their field.
I touched the surface
I know I only touched the surface here. There’s so much more to say about the topic, but that would require an entire book.
I hope you take the following from the article:
the product manager role is challenging.
the product manager role is vastly different from roles like project manager, engineer or business analyst.
the shift from project thinking to product thinking is huge.
you won’t believe how many people I met who believed they were expert product managers while they were merely project managers with a new name.
it’s ok to be humble and admit you need to learn a lot.
Original article January 2024
Even though, I know you know, and you stated so, I still wouldn't define product owner as "Product owner actually do this...", but more of "A Product owner is supposed to be a role in Scrum, that everyone can take, including the product manager."
It's widely misunderstood. Even hiring a product owner is for me strange. Because I feel like that is still a role in Scrum. Scrum acts within complex environments. But it doesn't mean that the environment's state persists like this for a fulltime role.
Eventually a product owner would need to be renamed to product manager.
Why do I say that?
In my understanding, the product owner should do what the product manager does within a Scrum environment. This is maximizing the value. But one needs knowledge and methods the product managers does to maximize the value within a Scrum team. Do they need to be two different people? I don't know, man and often I don't think so.