How Product Managers Can Avoid Build Trap?

#productmanagers play many roles to deliver a product that customers love. Product managers are builders - they should have DNA for building new things. However many times they forget why they are building a product. Melissa Perri, CEO and founder of ProduxLabs called this a 'Build Trap'. Also, Melissa wrote a book: Escaping the Build Trap: How Effective Product Management Creates Real Value. I loved this book as I could relate to the ideas presented in this book. However, the below thoughts are not summaries of the book.

A product manager should avoid the 'build trap' and focus on creating value for the business. A product manager is neither CEO of the product nor a waiter/program manager. A product manager is not a middleman between business and engineering to get things executed as instructed by a business leader. A product manager should focus on the following to avoid falling into the build trap-

• Be a customer-centric leader: The product manager should learn about customer problems by meeting with customers, taking interviews and doing data back analysis. A product manager should see beyond the obvious and he should not be acting blindly on what the customer is asking for. E.g. customers needed a duplicate bill and asked for an easy way to raise the request. A product manager trapped in a 'build trap' will create a digital touchpoint for raising a request. A good product manager will look at the core problem- the customer needs a bill. He will give the customer an option to get the bill directly in a self-serve platform.
• Align with Business Goals: Product managers struggle big time to align with business goals. There is a continuous conflict to solving pain points of business Vs. customer pain points. A good product manager connects customer problems with business goals. The product manager's win is creating long-term business value by solving customer problems. Both can't be divergent. E.g. customer asks for a new feature which will neither gives any revenue upside nor a competitive advantage. It's neither a vitamin to create long-term value nor a painkiller for immediate impact. What should the product manager do in this case? The product manager should create a backlog item with impact as 'Question mark' and should not build the feature before converting 'Question mark' into an imapctful business KPI.
• Follows Agile to deliver business value, Not be a slave of processes: A good product manager follows the basics of agile as mentioned in Agile manifesto-

1. Individuals and interactions?over processes and tools
2. Working software?over comprehensive documentation
3. Customer collaboration?over contract negotiation
4. Responding to change?over following a plan

There are a lot of agile books and gurus who made things complicated. Agile means simple. Following complicated processes with precision and losing velocity during the process is an example of misplaced priorities. Product managers should avoid falling into 'Agile Trap'.

• Define Core Metrics That Drive Business: Metrics are like a light in the dark. A good product manager defines metrics that are directly connected with business goals. A metrics tree helps the Product manager to assess the potential impact and prioritize the roadmap. He should keep revisiting the metrics tree at regular intervals to keep updating the metrics tree as per changing business environments and trends.

Product managers are passionate professionals who have to find solutions to real problems. Rituals, processes and frameworks are there to help them but these are not the real goals. A good product manager solves real customer and business problems and keeps experimenting till he achieves his goals.

If you have reached here, please provide your views in the comments section. Thanks in advance.