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Good Product Manager, Bad Product Manager (1996) [pdf]

by naftaliharris on 10/11/15, 4:44 AM with 19 comments

  • by crdoconnor on 10/11/15, 4:06 PM

    The four most common problems I've had with PMs:

    #1 Won't nail down the customer's actual problem, describe it clearly to you and let you come up with a solution. They will just pass on the customer's proposed solution and insist that you build it.

    #2 Vague, Incomplete and unversioned specifications rife with duplication and redundant information.

    #3 Inability to prioritize or break down stories coherently.

    #4 Won't get their hands dirty actually testing the product. That's QA's job.

  • by captnswing on 10/11/15, 9:21 AM

    There's also the corresponding "Good Engineer, Bad Engineer" which I like

    http://www.chrispliakas.com/2015/01/22/good-engineer-bad-eng...

  • by tatx on 10/11/15, 3:29 PM

    I have worked with several project managers who cite this article and claim to live by this ideal. However in practice they do everything but what is mentioned of a good product manager in the article. I don't know if I am biased or if the product managers, like most humans it would seem, fail to see themselves in a bad light (and thus correct themselves and set anew on a better path).

    I also think that this is a subjective article, which, while it tries to list down the differences between good and bad traits of a product manager, fails to strongly separate the bad traits from the good ones by using vague management speak, and in general ends up making product managers feel goody goody about just being product managers.

  • by sfrechtling on 10/11/15, 9:14 AM

    One of the last times this popped up, I printed it out and annotated it. I wanted to see if it was possible to take something so different to my working world (risk management) and apply it. Annotating it for my situation made it clear that this document should be seen as more far-reaching than just differentiating product managers. It really is pointing out the difference between good workers and bad workers in any organisation.

    Every single point made has an element that can be applied to any organisation and career; Productive workers understand the context of business ("Good PMs take all important factors..."); successful workers solve the issue, not the symptom ("Good [PMs]...proper deeper into the [problem]"). Sometimes I look back at my annotated pages and score myself about whether I fall to "Bad" or to "Good". I'm still working at it.

    I urge everybody to read, and apply this to their own careers. Don't pigeonhole this document just because it is defined as important to product managers. I see this as just as influential as Ray Dalio's Principles (http://www.bwater.com/Uploads/FileManager/Principles/Bridgew...)

  • by theo on 10/11/15, 1:18 PM

    Interestingly, author thinks these points may not be relevant today. What has changed?

    Warning: This document was written 15 years ago and is probably not relevant for today’s product managers. I present it here merely as an example of a useful training document.

    http://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-m...

  • by ajmurmann on 10/11/15, 3:19 PM

    I read this the other day in Ben Horrowitz's book "The Hard Things About Hard Things" and loved the idea by other commenters here to apply it to other fields. Just [my own version](https://github.com/ajmurmann/good-developer-bad-developer) that represents my views on engineering. I tried to stay away from concrete, good practices like TDD or pairing that are en vogue right now. Although I have very strong opinions on some of those, they are controversial and I think they would take value away from the larger points.

    I would be excited to hear people's thoughts on it!

  • by happywolf on 10/11/15, 3:27 PM

    I am a product manager in the financial sector and generally I agree with this list. What I want to add is "A good PM knows how to balance competing requests from stakeholders and know when to say no". You can't please everybody.

  • by meshko on 10/11/15, 4:25 PM

    This is a surprisingly good writeup. Now if someone can come up with a way I can make my pm read it w/o offending him...

  • by arielweisberg on 10/11/15, 7:34 PM

    How is a bad product manager supposed to know they are one of the bad ones? How do you explain it to them?

  • by dang on 10/11/15, 6:31 AM

    Posted many times yet apparently never discussed: https://hn.algolia.com/?query=%22Good%20Product%20Manager,%2....