Serving too many Gods

This is my second "inspired by Jeff Lash" post :-). Jeff recently blogged about -> "Deliver customer value, not product features" which I think should be gospel for a product manager. Incidentally making this simple statement ring true is the most rewarding as well as the most challenging part of product management.

In my personal experience, one of the challenges with living up to this goal is the desire to please too many masters. As a product manager, you are in the middle of a lot of information flow and will get G2/request/demand/threats/requirements/... from a lot of sources. Accept them with gratitude, treat them with respect, process them appropriately but remember that your allegiance and goal is to delight the customer while solving the customer's problem and not to put the other stakeholder's product needs ahead of the customer. Your company expects this of you.


I leave you with this hasty diagram :-)



Happy customer picture is the property of Dan Taylor and is being used here thanks to his Creative Commons license. Thanks Dan!