What should a PM do?

Does it help build a product the customer will love & use? Do it. Else, it's a tax.

Yesterday I had a conversation with a product manager on my team. He is mid-career, with about about 10 years of experience, leading a team of four. He was concerned about his growth in product management.

After speaking for for a while we identified his core concern. He was seeing people around him participate in hiring events, in mentoring junior PMs, in giving talks about product management, in participating in external events, and so on. He felt he wasn't doing enough, and wanted to how he could get opportunities for such activities so he could become more visible.

This is a classic mid-career trap in product management. Over the course of our conversation I shared a model that I've used to think about my own allocation of time & that has helped me a lot.

Product management is about one thing, and one thing alone: “Am I spending time in building a product that the customer will use & love?”.

This is a full-time job. You've got to have good reasons for spending your time on anything other than this. Everything else is a tax you have to pay, especially if you are in a large company. 

Hiring for the company? Tax. Talk to junior PMs? Tax. External events? Tax. None of these help the customer that you are building the product for. The customer doesn't care about your hiring, your talk, your external events. 

So, simply put, these are all useless activities (or rather, as useful as tax!). They neither help your customer, or your own growth as a product manager.

The only path for exponential career growth in product management is through disciplined focus on on the one thing the job is about: building products that customers use and love.

Links to look at!

Read this piece by Jeff Bezos in his statement to the US House Committee on the Judiciary. Read it for its clarity, its emphasis & its writing.