In the world of product management there is a vast range of all sorts of methodologies, leadership tactics and development practices. With the goal of broadening my own knowledge, and helping to improve yours, I reached out to some of the top influencers (one of them even agreed to participate in an interview for our blog) in the field to discuss a couple pain points in product management. We touched on a wide variety of topics ranging from the future of the industry to some of their favorite tools and more.

I’m excited to share this unique handbook of product management wisdom!

Top Tools the Pros Love

Tools are what give us product managers the ability to simplify the technical aspect and really focus our efforts on the team and product. A good PM tool can improve a product manager’s ability to properly lead their team. By allowing the tools to deal with the logistical stuff, PMs have much more flexibility.

Here are some of the top recommended PM tools according to the experts:

“Kanban. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a white board, you are using a simple tool like Trello, or you have adopted a Kanban-enabled ALM system. What matters is that you follow the principles of Kanban which includes limiting your work in process (WiP), improving collaboratively with feedback from Kanban measures like time in process (TiP), and making process-policies explicit.”

-Larry Maccherone, Director of Analytics and Research

“For developing software products, I enjoy using the Atlassian suite of tools, (Confluence, JIRA, etc.) The key to these tools is their simplicity. I can quickly and easily write up a product specification in Confluence, and then break it down into discrete engineering tasks in JIRA seamlessly.”

-Erick Watson, Data Science Executive

“Excel, A4 day a page diary, index cards, Sketch book + purple pen, and Unsplash… I think my favorite tools are simple because they never let you down, are easy to introduce to any situation that could use some help and teach you a lot fast. I find the best tools are the ones that help you work well with others.”

-Katherine Barrett, Product Manager

“The PLM tool I found the most effective was Microsoft Team Foundation Server and Visual Studio Enterprise Editions. I know many people scoff at Microsoft tools and the large price tag, but my experience overall with PLM tools has been you get what you pay for. The big advantage TFS/VS has over other tools I have used is the level of integration. PLM, Engineering, Testing, Reporting, Document Management, etc. all work for the most part seamlessly with one another with relatively little effort from an administration and user point of view.”

-Michael Boumansour, Executive IT Management Consultant

Common Challenges Product Managers Face Today

Product management is one challenging and complex field. Each product team comes with its own unique set of challenges which must be overcome in order to produce a successful product. I feel it’s important to be aware the challenges involved in the industry in order to better understand how to overcome them.

I asked this group of experts to explain what they felt the biggest challenges are in the today’s industry:

“Being given the time to create a product market strategy. It is the most overlooked aspect and failure to do so usually results in product failure.”

-David Fradin, Product Management and Marketing Course Author

“I believe the most common problem facing PMs today is the same one that has been facing them since day 1…how to do more with less. It’s not a problem unique to product managers, but I think it perhaps can be more intense since quite often their products are often key to revenue and/or strategic goals.”

-Michael Boumansour, Executive IT Management Consultant

“Not knowing how to say “no” and have people like it. Product managing is the art of managing what you are NOT going to do. To pull it off, you need to have a laser focus on your vision even as you adjust it often based upon new evidence. “Stop starting and start finishing” is my motto.

Experiment skills. When is a low fidelity experiment enough? When is a live A/B test best? How do I gather the right data? How do I analyze the data?

Not believing in experiment results. I’ve seen too many Product Managers use experiments to justify their vision. These folks are not always easy to spot until the conclusive evidence of an experiment goes against their vision. Sure, the experiment is not perfect, but neither is your qualitative insight.”

-Larry Maccherone, Director of Analytics and Research

“I believe Product-Market Fit is always the greatest and most important challenge — everything else flows from this. It can be very frustrating to find yourself working on a product that no customers want to purchase. Conversely, finding a legitimate market need and devising a product for it can be very seductive without first testing or “prototyping” your assumptions. In the majority of cases, the failure of any given product can often be mapped back to poor Product-Market Fit and/or invalid assumptions when attempting to address a perceived market need. Product Managers must check their biases at the door and validate their understanding daily.”

-Erick Watson, Data Science Executive

“It’s a big one but the constant battle between creating something new versus growing or killing something off is a huge challenge. In short: product lifecycle management. There is so much talk in the industry about great ways to prove concepts, develop products, and find market fit and then… The silence that follows in the conversation is a massive challenge… The challenge is that it’s not sexy so we don’t get together and talk about how to clean house and make brutal decisions… It’s not something that is going to go away but I hope it’s something we will get better at. The challenge: building something new is fun it’s just not always the answer.”

-Katherine Barrett, Product Manager

The Future of Product Management

The future of the industry is dynamic, as new technologies and methodologies are constantly springing up. Each expert has a unique perspective on what’s in store the future of product management. Of course no one here can see into the future, but I consider educated opinions based on experience and knowledge to be the next best thing. Let’s take a look at what professionals currently working in the field think about the future of the industry…

“In my view big data, analytics, machine learning, and AI are changing everything. Those technologies are advancing rapidly and their impact seems to be more prevalent every day. As they say the age of the machine is upon us and I believe it is going to have a huge ripple effect on almost every dimension of society.

From a product development and management point of view I can see the days where all the information gathering, ideation, programming, testing, deployment, etc. strictly being done by human beings coming to an end. I believe it will be a much more hybrid approach where AI does a lot of the lower level “grunt work”, for lack of a better term, and development teams will be operating at a much higher level.”

-Michael Boumansour, Executive IT Management Consultant

“Getting our titles changed to “Product Success Manager” and being given budgetary authority over the market research and marketing costs for our products. Just like what Procter and Gamble did when they invented the Brand Manager in 1932.”

David Fradin, Product Management and Marketing Course Author

“Product Managers will need to become recognized experts. Product managers who are not industry recognized experts in their product category, will find it harder and harder to succeed both in internal politics as well as in the marketplace.

More internal startups. Success leads to growth. Growth leads to ossification which in turn makes you vulnerable to disruption. More and more companies recognize this existential risk and there are various book authors and consultants telling you how to avoid it (think lean startup and design thinking “industries”). However, all of their advice boils down to a relatively simple idea. You need to empower a smart, driven, industry-expert in your employ to build and run a team like it was a startup.”

-Larry Maccherone, Director of Analytics and Research

“Product managers spend most of their days communicating ideas, product direction, roadmaps, delays, etc. Having the ability to communicate efficiently and a customer-first mentality is a must for the role. No amount of technical, business, or domain knowledge can make up for poor communication skills and making decisions without customer insights driving product decisions.”

-April Rassa, Product Marketing & Growth Lead

“I see a great deal of innovation in terms of more intelligent methodologies and tools that product managers can use to develop and continuously improve their products over time, which is encouraging. That said, the rate of change in our everyday lives, and of technology in particular, continues to increase. This means that product lifecycles will become compressed — shorter and shorter until they’re just a blur. Many products will wax and wane faster than ever before. Developing great products and services will become more and more of a continuous process, as opposed to a discrete, highly structured endeavor. Product Managers who are nimble and learn to “surf this wave” will become more valuable in the future. We should always be curious learners and continue to challenge ourselves, striving to reach the pinnacle of our vocation.”

-Erick Watson, Data Science Executive

“Replaced by robots and groups: I always explain product management as kind of like translating. Getting everyone communicating in a way that others can understand is a part of the job. I think that as the product management industry expands and becomes more well known, the skills of translating will be shared amongst individuals and require less of a role.

Change management and service design: Things change at a rapid rate in technology and business these days. If people learn to talk the language of value and customers I don’t think we will be out of a job all together. Instead I think product managers will be asked to step into more of a change management role. We will need to help our customers change their behaviours; and businesses change how they create and manage products in the wild. We will be focused on service design, end-to-end experiences and making change less scary while asking people to turn the status quo upside down. It’ll be fun!”

-Katherine Barrett, Product Manager

A Few Words of Advice…

I always find it so useful to hear what advice other professionals have to share. I think it helps generate a more successful generation of product managers. Learning from others’ experiences is one of the most beneficial experiences:

“Ask for a title change and for the authority.”

-David Fradin, Product Management and Marketing Course Author

“Be a part of the development team. If you aren’t already, be part of the DevSecOps development team. If you are, stay that way..

Get public speaking and media training. In order to be an industry-recognized expert, you’ll of course need the expert-level knowledge and insight, but that’s not enough for the “industry-recognized” part. For that, you’ll need to give public talks, get published in 3rd party sources, and be interviewed for analyst reports or the media. Public speaking skills and media training will go a long way to help you be effective at these things.”

-Larry Maccherone, Director of Analytics and Research

“No matter what level you rise to in an organization you must seek to inspire, assist and hold yourself and your team to a high standard of excellence. Always work as a unit with your engineering team. Spend time with customer support/success teams to understand what problems users are having. Build lateral relationships with other team leads- especially outside of product and engineering.”

-April Rassa, Product Marketing & Growth Lead

“Curiosity, humility, flexibility, and exceptional listening skills- these are the foundational requirements to becoming a good product manager. To become a truly great product manager you must combine these with a clear and compelling vision…”

-Erick Watson, Data Science Executive

“Very simple, never forget regardless of what kind of product you are building your job is about people, the people consuming, using, buying, and building your product.”

-Michael Boumansour, Executive IT Management Consultant