Looking for some advice, what are some common mistakes new product managers make?

Seek to understand and clarify first before assuming you have learnt everything that is to know and propose solutions.  I see there are lot of online courses, documentation, articles -- you can do a lot of reading online to educate yourself about the complexities of model development, data gathering, data labeling, training and testing.  One of the big challenges for AI/ML PMs is understanding whether we have enough data for training the model, is it diverse enough to cover for the specific use- ...Read More

Everyone is going to make new mistakes coming into a PM role depending on where they are starting from. For me, my biggest mistake was letting my own imposter syndrome take over. I had worked so hard to move from a CSM role into product and once it finally happened, I couldn't get rid of the voice in my head saying, "Wow you are so lucky they *let* you move into product, don't screw it up, because you definitely have no idea what you are doing!" While this was kind of true (I really didn't know ...Read More

Here's a few common mistakes I see in no particular order (many I've made myself): Not talking to enough customers IMO you should be talking to at least a couple of customers a week, and listening to more customer calls e.g. with Gong, #ShamelessPlug. But seriously, listen and talk to more customers, it's a gold mine you're sitting on and almost certainly not utilizing enough. Focusing on user personas vs. jobs to be done. This almost always results in a biased, solution-centric view of reality ...Read More

I think the most common mistake that I see is jumping to solutions quickly. This is definitely my biggest mistake as I started as a product manager. For me, it was/is really easy to think I know the answer and to move quickly from the unknown/undefined to the known/defined stage and ultimately check something off the list by delivering it into the hands of customers. However, the role of the product manager is to stay in curiosity and research and the unknown for long enough in order to get enou ...Read More

(NB: I'm presuming "new" means early-in-career, not new to the company) There are plenty of opportunities to make mistakes. Good PMs are humble, inquisitive, try to contain the blast radius of potential mistakes, and update their priors based on experience. Some common patterns I see in newer product managers: Jumping to prioritization frameworks before understanding the customer and market New PMs get outsized benefits from focusing on customer discovery, market discovery, and developing intuit ...Read More

The biggest misconception about PM is that it's a tactical, inward facing role. It should be a strategic, outside in role. Writing stories, running scrum ceremonies and crashing standups are some of the least important things on your plate, yet it's where most new PMs spend their time. You need to get out of the office (virtually these days), spend time with customers and prospects, and develop a deep understing their pain and the problem.  Engineers are really good at running scrum ceremonies, ...Read More

Based on my experience, some common mistakes AI PMs make include focusing too much on technology instead of user needs and business impact, ignoring data quality and feasibility early on, and deploying models without a feedback loop. My advice for new AI PMs: 1. Take a user-first approach, with AI as an enabler, not the driver. Work backward from how users will interact with the product and then develop the model that best fits their needs. 2. Thoroughly analyze data quality and availability and ...Read More