Product Management in Practice: A Practical, Tactical Guide for Your First Day and Every Day After

by Matt Lemay

In theory, product management is about building products that people love. In practice, product management often means fighting for incremental improvements on products that are facing much more fundamental challenges. In theory, product management is about triangulating business goals with user needs. In practice, product management often means pushing relentlessly to get any kind of clarity about what the business’s “goals” actually are. In theory, product management is a masterfully played game of chess. In practice, product management often feels like a hundred simultaneous games of checkers.

For better or worse, senior stakeholders often have access to important high-level information about the business that you simply do not. Based on this information, they might override your priorities or shift those priorities when you’re midway through a project. They might even wield the bludgeon of “because I said so” if they can’t reveal the sensitive details of conversations that are playing out between themselves and other senior stakeholders. In short, senior stakeholders will always win the poker game. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to ensure that

your business and your users win along with them.