10 Sins of the Corporate Product Manager
Anti-patterns in corporate product management that should be avoided
Having worked over 6 years now in large retail corporations as a product manager, thankfully in their digital-first team, I’ve seen a lot of anti-patterns that the newly ordained product managers in big organizations follow. Fortunately, for me, I have the hindsight of working in startups for a good 5 years before, so I think I can be a good judge of these anti-patterns.
And I am by no means excusing myself from having committed some of the sins listed below — and hope, that you too can consider this in good humor.
To keep things light — everything is so serious in big corporations — I’ll be converting these anti-patterns to the comedic style of Jeff Foxworthy. So, sit back and have a laugh or two… 🤣
For the sake of brevity, I’ve put the major sins up top, while the more light ones are at the bottom.
1. If your product discovery is a single diamond or flat diamond
you might just be a corporate product manager
The double diamond is a popular approach to product design & development. It incorporates the level of focus the outcomes will have. A good double diamond is a series of activities that wax & wane depending upon the outcomes.
But, in a corporate environment, sometimes the discovery period is so tiny or non-existent that you are just thrust towards working without thinking.
The most common ones I’ve seen are the flat version & the consultant ones. On the consultant ones, I love how big organizations hire the best of the best (or so their HR claims) and somehow consultancies are still thriving? Why outsource your thinking? I’m fairly puzzled by that and would love to know if you know why…
2. If you prefer mediocrity in your work, because no one else can check it
You might just be a corporate product manager
There are times when you want to take a shortcut in what you do because you know for a fact that there is no one on the other side who can challenge it. Mediocrity occurs, not because we want to be mediocre. Mediocrity occurs because it’s the easy thing to do. It’s easy to say, this variation in the design works because I said so. The hard thing is to put it in front of the end-users and have them have their say.
I had this experience recently where at the end of an experiment, I was willing to take the initial results (which were good enough) to present to the business. However, thankfully, my data scientist (amazing detail-oriented folks who keep us product folks in check) insisted that we deep dive and eliminate all other possibilities. This resulted in a better outcome and fewer opportunities for questioning the outcome.
3. If you are just doing project management
You might just be a corporate product manager
Many times, I see Corpo product managers simply doing the part of installing a new system or a service within the ecosystem of the organization. They have no control over the backlog of the product/service and mostly, do not have full knowledge of the system they’re installing. They project manage the integration and hand the system to the end-users. That is just project management, no matter how you sugarcoat it.
4. If you include covering your ass activities as a central part of your day
You might just be a corporate product manager
In one of my previous organizations, Cover Your Ass(CYA) activities were mandated throughout the day and became a daily rigor for a sister team. Our standups had developers accounting for their 8 hours to ensure that the Audit team was happy with the utilization. We were so focused on CYA that we lost out on outcomes over the process.
CYA activities are needed in corporate PM roles — but know which ones come at the cost of outcomes. Outcomes are sacrosanct. Outputs do not matter.
5. If you (or people around you) talk a lot of theory
You might just be a corporate product manager
Have you ever been in conversations where people are talking a lot of theory (especially about Agile), only for them to return to their desks and do exactly the opposite? Have you had people complain that had this been a different place, they would have done things differently, but since it is what it is, they have no choice. But they’ve read that this is how it is done, and it makes sense to them…
I call that living in the “what-ifs”. If you are stuck in a similar situation, try to live in the “What-cans” — what can you do to implement the new thing you learned? What can you do to have a different product discovery or development method implemented? You’ll learn a thing or two about the practical challenges of implementing theory — which can make you a decent product manager.
6. If your roadmaps are decided at the beginning of the year and do not change with customer/business priorities
You might be a corpo product manager
Oh, this boils my blood. With the agile revolution finally hitting the corpos, the naysayers have found a safe (Pun intended) haven in SAFe. SAFe is not agile. Agility means that the team works to deliver workable iterations of a product that delivers value to both customers & business. This also means that nothing is written in stone — no long-term roadmaps, no long-term commitments, nothing! Nothing can stand in the way of delivering measurable improvements in the product.
And yet, we find many corpos with detailed delivery timelines from each siloed function within the organization. Each line has project (or product) managers to ensure things are aligned (they never are), who love nothing better than to blame each other for delays. Often, business is crying for help, but these folks busy aligning the roadmaps to ensure ease of delivery!
7. If you report on only the shiny metrics but hide the bad metrics
You might just be a corporate product manager
I’ve seen this often — corpo product managers report on the good metrics (the ones that show progress) and not on the bad ones. If you keep giving a false impression of the success of the product, eventually the difference in customers’ reaction (exposed by the money they’re putting in your organization) and your success reporting will become apparent.
But then again, there is always the data to blame.
8. If you have more than one product manager on your products backlog
You might just be a corporate product manager
SCRUM guideline clearly states — one bus, one driver. Having more than one product manager (one for business, one for technical, one for data) on the same backlog creates a cacophony of requirements that spreads chaos in the development team.
Just take ownership of the backlog and liaise with the other PMs for help.
9. If you have the launch date & the scope handed to you at the beginning of every product development
You might just be a corporate product manager
“We want you to build this new shiny product that does this, envisioned by the son of the CEO. Launch this by the 5th of December at 1 pm.”
Does this sound familiar to you? Well, you might just be a corpo product manager.
Also, if most of your backlog is filled with “groomed” ideas from the HiPPO (Highest Paid Person's Opinion)— you might be a corporate product manager.
10. If you have launched a lot of “products” in a short period, but haven’t iterated on them
You might just be a corporate product manager
Aren’t we, the corporate product managers, victims of this? You launch a product — it’s a great success — and then boom! You’re on the next one. You are a product launching machine… but a terrible product manager. Real product learning comes when the product hits the proverbial rubber road. And if you say, yeah, but I sort of managed the backlog for each of them, then well, you are sort of a product manager.
And, I’m not saying what sort…