Anti-patterns over a PM's workflow

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Product management could seem very nuanced & feel like you've onboarded yourself onto a supersonic jet plane ✈ from what was earlier a bike.🚴 Here's a thread🧵 exploring a few anti-patterns over PM's workflow. #productmanagement #antipattern #dosanddonts #aspirants 1/

Over my recent article "The Product web!🕸️" in my weekly newsletter I've covered the duties, important outcomes in detail over interactions that PMs ought to have with each of those concerned teams over their regular workflow. Here's the link: mgmtinc.substack.com/p/the-product-web 2/

There are many "don'ts" & "anti-patterns" that you would have to be aware of & steer clear over the course of your PM journey. It is very possible that some of these could happen to you at a regular cadence as you start off. Let's stick to the same order as in the article. 3/

1. EXECs, Leadership You ought to interface with your leadership / EXECs over getting the download on those high-level goals. Anti-patterns: - hesitating to ask questions & clarify over any doubts - not rephrasing & confirming at the end of the session 4/

- jumping into detailed discussions right there over the solutioning / "How" - failing to make a connection at a professional level - swallowing everything hook line & sinker without being assertive enough over those goals - not diving deep enough to understand the motivations 5/

2. UXR, UX What starts at the beginning, during or after ideation stage ought to be a continuous engagement with UX teams, sometimes on-off. Anti-patterns: - shunning yourself totally & not spending time with the UX teams - not getting involved in the research process 6/

- not handing over the right download over the right requirements - carrying out generic research without proper immersion over exploring and delving deeper for more insight into the market space / user segments - getting into blind extrapolations without correlation 7/

3. Design As of today, the word's getting out that design could indeed end up being a differentiator, but only if done right Anti-patterns: - handing over half-baked specs with no background over user's emotions, motivations - going ahead with the first ever design created 8/

- solution bias over employing a design as a quick fix solution to a problem on the field - concentrating only on the UI, the look and feel without getting into the nitty gritty over information architecture / interaction design - not testing for smoothness, usability 9/

4. Development As for the build cycle, there's always been a lot of onus on it. But, truth be told, this is where most of it could go wrong as well. Anti-patterns: - half-baked understanding & coupled with solution bias - approaching problems from solution's standpoint 10/

- scampering with whatever is possible to finish the build compromising UX - picking quantity over quality by deciding over building tons of features sans concentrating on "The One" that's important - myopic architectural vision with no upgradability 11/

5. Growth, Analytics Its imperative to identify, define the right KPIs & measure right metrics ensuring that they circle back to the success criteria / goals. Anti-patterns: - misaligned KPIs - misreading metrics - vague extrapolations of the success criteria 12/

- lack of a clear understanding over the goals leading to a total hodgepodge over the numbers matter & ought to be tracked - not spending enough time & quick to call success / failure - totally ignoring & being indifferent about neutral / negative signals & not acting in time 13/

6. Marketing Marketing could propel an average product. No doubt, great products ought to shoot through the roof then. Anti-patterns: - not A/B testing pitches enough before finalizing - waiting until such time that development work finishes to start marketing the product 14/

- lack of brainstorming leading to poor evolution of the pitch - failing to get teams to concentrate on & link the pitches to the problems the users are facing - poor targeting - content not resonating, not easily co-relatable - not factoring in the user's feedback 15/

7. Sales There's nothing notably wrong in some organization being sales led. Anti-patterns: - trying to replicate numbers sans tying it to research & TAM - ignoring warning signals over unusual drop-off rates - merging the backlog with direct inputs from the sales teams 16/

- turning a total blind eye on the responses from the field representative of the VOM - going in with a fixed sales strategy & not willing to budge - going in with "one size fits all" pitch - lack of communication between sales teams on the field & other internal teams 17/

8. Customer Success Anti-patterns: - lack of interfacing with CS teams at a regular cadence - ignoring the qualitative inputs, not spending enough time going over the verbatim - fixating on the quantitative signals only, the numbers, the analytics 18/

That's it folks! If you enjoyed reading this, please: 1. Retweet the first tweet - it'd help me greatly! 2. Follow me @bgpinv for more on #productmanagement, #leadership & #culture. 3. Check out & subscribe to my Newsletter - mgmtinc.substack.com/ Thanks for reading 🙏

SUMMARY: No doubt, PMs could more often than not feel like that lone spider stuck in its own web over their workflow, interfacing with every internal / external stakeholder. But truth be told, there is a method to the madness which one needs to understand & master.