Main Takeaways: - Being a PM is a hard job, but there’s ways to navigate. - Building relationships is crucial to getting into product and staying there. - Determine if the bad parts outweigh the good parts before you switch to Product.

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6. What Sucks About Product
Management
Presenter: Martie Burris
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7. Agenda:
● Introduction
● Disclaimer
● 7 Things That Suck
● Q&A
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8. Introduction:
● Product Manager since 2016
● Senior Manager for Salesforce
● Founder of FoldingChair Initiative
● Avid Traveler
● Tech Enthusiast
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9. FoldingChair was founded on
one simple concept: If there’s
not enough space at the table
for you, bring a folding chair.
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Since 2018, we’ve been strategically
creating space for dozens of product
managers. The initiative has produced over
$4M in salaries for underrepresented
Product Managers at some of the biggest
companies in the world.

10. Disclaimer:
● Before we begin, I want you to understand I’m intentionally talking about the
uninteresting, overlooked and less glamorous parts of product management.
● My goal is to make sure after today’s presentation you have a better sense of the
career field.
● Your most important takeaways should be feeling better prepared for pitfalls
and set up for success.
● If you learned one new thing today, then this was worth your time.
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11. 7. You’re Not The Ceo of Your Product.
You’re not the CEO of your product, simply because you’re not a CEO. People must listen to the CEO. No one is
obligated to listen to you.
You are the thought leader and visionary for your product.
No one should know the product better than you. Part of being successful in
product is leading through influence.
If you’re struggling with this, read “How Do You Win Friends, and Influence People” by Dale
Carnegie.
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12. 6. Your Key to Success is Relationships.
Relationships are everything in product management. Your relationships with your stakeholders and most
importantly with your engineers can be make or break for your career.
Spend time cultivating relationships.
Remember Tuckman’s 5 stages of team development? Forming,storming and
norming, performing and adjourning? They apply here. Relationships are built
on trust. It’s important people trust you as a teammate and visionary.
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13. 5. Your Requirements Are Wrong.
Product Managers represent the customer. In some cases you may be the sole advocate for the end user. If you get
customer advocacy wrong, you lose trust with your team that’s hard to regain.
Advocate and Promote a continuous delivery and agile mindset.
Collect data, team with research, triple check assumptions and strategies. In
product, most people aren’t double checking your work. They’re trusting you.
Get it right by being meticulous in the research phase. Share your approach
and let others give you feedback.
Customer requirements aren’t necessarily product requirements.
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14. 4. You’re Not Data Driven Enough.
“Data Driven Product Management” varies from company to company but data always matter. The more you
collect, the more it inspires your work, the more successful you can be.
There’s always data.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking there’s enough. Find data to support your
designs. Find data to test your features. Design with key data outputs in mind to
understand the adoption and success of your products.
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15. 3. “If you’re successful, it’s the team. If you
fail, it’s the PM.”
Failure is inevitable. In healthy teams, people share the blame but in reality someone has to take ownership of
mistakes. Most of the time it will be you.
If you don’t fail, you don’t grow.
This is a hard one to avoid. The point is to know you’ll experience it and you’ll
be a stronger product manager as a result of it.
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16. 2. You’re the “What” not the “How”.
Your role isn’t to tell people “how” to do their jobs or contribute. You’re responsible for meeting objectives and
delivering value. This is one of the most common mistakes new product managers make.
If you find yourself if a place where you’re telling engineers or
stakeholders “how” to do their jobs. You’re not doing your own job.
Product Managers often overextend themselves so much they forget their
responsibilities. You can avoid that by asking yourself, “am I contributing to
‘what’ needs to happen, or ‘how’ it happens?”
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17. 1. It’s Okay to Say “No”.
There will always be scope creep. Customers will always need something. Your engineers will always want more.
Sales will always need a feature.
You don’t have to say yes.
Have convictions, stick to the plan when it makes sense and adjust when it
doesn’t. If you don’t agree with something speak up. Innovation starts with you
and your ability to push the envelope.
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18. Recap
7. You’re not the Ceo of your product.
6. Your key to success is relationships.
5. Your requirements are wrong.
4. You’re not data driven enough.
3. If you’re successful, it’s the team. If you fail, it’s the PM.
2. You’re the “what” not the “how”
1. It’s okay to say “no”.
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19. Q&A
Thanks for attending. Please send me a note on Linkedin and let me know your
thoughts on the session.
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www.linkedin.com/in/MeetMartie

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