'Know-how' is not enough to build a Product...

Recently I was reading a book - 'Ready To Fire: How India and I Survived the ISRO Spy Case' by Nambi Narayanan. I came across following quote and it stuck me like a lightening:

Anyone with basic understanding of rocket science knows even if the drawings are given, an (rocket) engine cannot be made without long years of development, guidance and extensive tests. In other words - You can't make a rocket engine based on 'Know-how' - you need the 'Know-why'

I could not summarize my own thought process about product management in any better way. In my opinion, this is perfectly true in the sense of Product Management as well. Only small addition I will make to it is -

You can't build a Product based on 'Know-how' - you need the 'Know-why' and 'Know-why not'

Most of the product management articles, videos and documents talk about 'Know-how'; but very few talk about Know-why's and hardly any talk about Know-why not's.

Here are few examples:

KNOW HOW will tell you - how to build a successful product

KNOW WHY / WHY NOT will tell you - Why this can be out of Survivorship Bias or Swimmer’s Body Illusion

KNOW HOW will tell you - top 10 OKR's for an e-commerce product

KNOW WHY / WHY NOT will tell you - Why none of these OKR's are suitable in your context or why to use only certain set of OKR's for measure your product success

KNOW HOW will tell you - how to use Jira to create user stories

KNOW WHY / WHY NOT will tell you - Why to use certain template in Jira, Why to enable certain fields and what are its impact on analysis, reporting etc.

KNOW HOW will tell you - how to write user stories in certain format

KNOW WHY / WHY NOT will tell you - why is it recommended to write user stories in certain way, why you can use it in your context and may be why you cannot use it in your certain context.

KNOW HOW will tell you - how to use RACI or how to create RACI matrix

KNOW WHY / WHY NOT will tell you - Why you can use it in your existing product / context. Why to extend it to create communication plan or Why to create RACI to find out if a certain role is over-burdened (vertical or horizontal analysis of RACI matrix

In short:

• Just relying on 'Know-how' can be dangerous as Product Manager will be focused on the tip of iceberg or just surface of the earth.
• Knowing why and why not gives access to the core of Product Management.
• Know-why / why not can only obtained via actual experience, application, knowledge about specific context, or awareness about cognitive biases etc.
• Know how articles can be churned out easily as the knowledge is explicit (mostly) and easily available to aggregate.
• But know-why's / why not's are implicit. One must deliberately internalize them and comprehend them. There is no short cut for 'Know-why / why not'.

Here is a small image to summarize my thought process: