Debunking 17 Common Misconceptions in Product Management
Debunking 17 Common Misconceptions in Product Management
Boost your confidence, increase your credibility, drive better decisions, and avoid common mistakes.
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Debunking 17 Common Misconceptions in Product Management
In today’s issue, I discuss 17 common misconceptions in Product Management:
🌎 Product Owner vs. Product Manager
🌎 Benchmarking
🌎 Product Vision vs. Product Strategy vs. Product Roadmap
Customers vs. Users vs. Buyers
The customer is always right
Outputs vs. Outcomes
Who sets the pricing
Product Operations
Minimum Viable Product
Metrics vs. KPIs
Velocity
Data-Informed vs. Data-Driven
Product Manager decides WHAT to build
Product Manager as a mini-CEO
Small Market Share
Story Points vs. Hours
Product-Market Fit
By mastering those areas, you can:
Boost your confidence
Increase your credibility
Drive better decisions
Avoid common mistakes
1. Product Owner vs. Product Manager
In many organizations, Product Owner and Product Manager are different job titles. In this setup, the Product Manager typically talks to the business and customers, and the Product Owner (“backlog administrator”) works closely with developers collecting and documenting “the requirements.”
I consider this one of the worst anti-patterns in Product Management.
As Marty Cagan said, to succeed as a Product Manager, you need:
Direct access to Users and Customers
Direct access to Business Stakeholders
Direct access to Engineers and Designer
Without proxies. Product Owner included.
The only valid setup is that Product Manager and Product Owner are a single person with the end-to-end responsibility.
In particular, it’s essential that Product Manager, Product Designer, and at least one Engineer perform Product Discovery together (for more information about the Product Trio, see this YouTube clip).
If you work in Scrum, as one of the PSPO III 400 worldwide, I’d like to emphasize that Product Owner is just accountability, and Product Manager is a job title. The Product Owner’s accountability is best fulfilled by an experienced Product Manager.
2. Benchmarking
Many organizations seem obsessed with comparing their product to what their competitors offer. They try to copy every feature others develop, wasting their energy and, ultimately, compromising profits.
Of course, I’m not saying you should ignore your competitors. You need to understand what they are doing. Using their products from time to time might be a good idea.
At the same time, remember that a good strategy is about competing to be unique, not the best for every possible customer segment. If you try to be the best at everything, you are not the best at anything.œ
You can become unique by:
Applying the appropriate pricing strategy. Two common strategies are becoming a cost leader (e.g., Southwest Airlines) and leveraging a Unique Value Proposition (e.g., Canva).
If you choose the Unique Value Proposition, the default approach for all customer-facing tech products, ask yourself what customer problems you can solve way better than anyone else.
Making tradeoffs. They are about what you do and, more importantly, what you don’t. For example, IKEA doesn’t sell assembled furniture and limits available choices. Tradeoffs amplify the value and make your strategy difficult to copy by your existing competitors.
For more information, see Introducing The Product Strategy Canvas.
I also highly recommend reading Benchmarking Is for Losers by Roger Martin.
3. Product Vision vs. Product Strategy vs. Roadmap
Many PMs struggle to explain the difference between Vision, Strategy, and Roadmap. But those are extremely simple concepts.
So let's tackle them one by one.
3.1. Product Vision
Product Vision is the long-term mission of your product. It’s aspirational and motivates your team to wake up every morning and go to work. It should speak to people’s hearts.
For example, “Send humans to the Moon” or “Help tour operators focus on doing what they love.”
Effective vision needs to be:
Inspiring — people who help to implement the vision should feel inspired
Achievable — it must have a decent chance of working. Don’t dream of traveling to Alpha Centauri until you send humans to Mars
Documented — do not let the vision stay in your head. You actually need to write it down to make it work
Communicated — it seems obvious, yet many forget about this. The Vision will only be effective if you communicate it to others
Emotional as well — vision becomes much more memorable when others can imagine themselves doing something practical and when it speaks to their hearts
My favorite example:
3.2 Product Strategy
Despite what many experienced people repeat, Strategy is not a plan, a goal, or a set of actions.
Product Strategy is a cohesive set of choices that, as you believe, will allow you to win (achieve your Vision) at the playing field of your choice.
It typically defines:
market and its constraints (e.g., geography)
value proposition
relative costs
tradeoffs
growth model (e.g., PLG)
Strategy should pass the “can’t / won’t test” so that competitors can't copy it without sacrificing their existing businesses.
A fantastic, short video by Prof. Michael Poter:
For more information, see Introducing The Product Strategy Canvas.
3.3 Product Roadmap
Product Roadmap is a communication tool that allows you to align everyone in the organization. It creates focus on what’s important right now. It should also explain the reasoning behind it.
In 3 Ways to Create 10X Better Product Roadmaps, I emphasized that the best approach is to:
Focus on goals, not features
Do not commit too soon
Shorten the planning horizon
In the picture, I didn’t include the “When” question. I have never seen a detailed plan longer than 2-3 months that stood the test of time, and my favorite roadmap is the Now-Next-Later, which answers, “In which order.” At the same time, in practice, many will expect you to put specific dates on the roadmap.
3.4 Important notes
3.4.1 Vision vs. Mission
Vision and Mission are often confused. I support using a single term as I do not see any value in splitting those statements. See the video above and analyze what JFK did. I also recommend you read an article by Prof. Roger Martin.
I agree with Prof. Roger Martin. How can you explain your goal without explaining how it will look when you achieve it? You need both to answer the Why - the most important question to build and motivate the team.
In case you need that distinction, the best definition of Mission vs. Vision I know:
Mission: What are you trying to achieve with your product?
Vision: What will it look like when you achieve it?
Now, see how LinkedIn confuses them:
3.4.2 Vision vs. Strategy
Some, like Prof. Roger Martin, say that Vision is part of Strategy (he calls it a “Winning Aspiration.”) To me, it makes sense, as Strategy is an integrated set of choices. And you develop them together.
But that’s not the most common opinion. So during interviews, you might want to keep it simple.
4. Customers vs. Users vs. Buyers
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