What accomplishment in your product management career has brought you the highest level of satisfaction and joy? Can you narrate why?

Running a comic series on product management (Shipping Tomorrow) has been immensely rewarding. We started out because we thought there were tons of comics about engineering and office humor, but not enough about product, a space fraught with unpredictability and insanity. We launched Shipping Tomorrow as a way to tell the world about the realities of product management, to spread some humor for others going through the same emotions, and to find ourselves a creative outlet. The experience has been gratifying - we’ve received so much love!

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What aspect of product management did you struggle the most with? How did you overcome it?

In my early days as a PM, I believed it was only my job to find answers to anything that engineers asked me - limits, edge cases, scenarios I hadn’t thought of. It would fluster me if I was asked something I hadn’t thought of before. That was a mistake. Over time, I realised that I was setting impossible standards for myself (and coming in my own way). No one person can think of everything. I needed to make my team understand the problem, not my solution. I needed to make my team a part of finding the solution. Not only does that bring a sense of purpose to the entire team, it also helps you find the smartest and the most creative solutions.

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What's one common myth about product management that you find common among aspiring PMs?

Many aspiring product managers, especially those who are in customer-facing roles, can sometimes find it hard to understand why product managers are focusing on certain problems and not on others. They have heard of some problems from customers they work closely with, and want to come in and fix them. I find it essential to recalibrate these expectations, while at the same time not killing their intent and enthusiasm, which is a delicate balance. The truth is, we work within constraints, and they will too, but that is also what makes this role more challenging and interesting.

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What are some common pitfalls that product managers must be aware of?

This is almost going to sound like a cliche but not obsessing about the problem enough, has caused me, and most product managers I know, enough heartbreak. It has cost us time, (company) money, effort and customer satisfaction. As product managers, it is our foremost responsibility to be sure we are solving the right problems, and if we aren’t sure, it is our responsibility to talk to enough customers and look at ample data to get to a point where we understand the problem statement well.

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If not product management, what career would you have picked? Are there any complimentary skillsets that you see between being a PM and your alternate choice?

I would have loved to be a full-time writer. In a lot of ways, there are overlaps between being a writer and being a Product Manager. For one, both need to understand their customers deeply - what brings them delight, what would tickle them, what would most certainly get their goat - you just apply this understanding to different products. Additionally, in both roles, you’d better have some marketing skills, oodles of creativity, the ability to plan and see the larger picture in order to be successful.

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What is something about product management that you wish you knew when you started out?

Just how important building relationships is. In the day to day of product management, one is always influencing, convincing, debating and pitching. Building good foundations with people, and fostering trust, almost becomes a necessity for you to be successful. That’s not to say that one cannot be a successful product manager based on skill alone, but skills + good relationships makes it easier to sail through. Because then, as a team, you are focusing only on the problem to be solved, all else set aside.