Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value

by Melissa Perri

Companies often confuse the building to learn and building to earn.

The most important piece of the MVP is the learning, which is why my definition has always been “the minimum amount of effort to learn.”

Consulting also taught me that one of the quickest ways to kill the spirit of a great employee is to put them in an environment where they can’t succeed. That’s when most people leave. Even good product managers become tired of waking up and going to war every day. They spend too much time trying to change the policies so that they can succeed at their job rather than building the best product they can.