The Product Manager’s Dilemma

The Product Manager’s Dilemma - my play on Christensen’s The Innovator’s Dilemma” - is should I spend my time leveraging my strengths or exploring and improving my weaknesses?

I asked this question to my past manager, I loved her answer, leverage your strengths but you have to be minimally good in many different areas”.

The answer to this question varies depending on the field you’re in, but for a generalist role like Product Management, this answer is spot on. You can be a business guru, but you also need to understand the technical limits of the engineering tools your team is using. Similarily, you can be a 10x engineer, but how will this next feature make the business money?

For anyone in PM or any generalist roles, what are the different areas that make up your role, and how can you reach minimum viable competence in them?

Inspiration credits to Brandon Chu’s Minimum Viable Product Manager.

January 6, 2020


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