Defensive Product Management
Most product managers are architects and designers by nature. We dream up features and marvel at our clever ability to solve the world's business requirements with new algorithms, concepts and paradigms. Our world feels complete when we design complex solutions that meet the needs of global markets, diverse industries, and scales from mid market to Fortune 100.
We arrive at these solutions by leveraging the standard product management toolset - market research, customer feedback sessions, usability studies, usage patterns and trend analysis - and then add in our own instincts and creativity to design cool new features. These are all critical skills for success, but there is one, less discussed skill that product managers require to build sustainable solutions. Product managers must also practice the skill of defensive product management.
Just as new drivers learn to drive defensively over time - anticipating risks from erratic drivers, road hazards, and other dangers -- product managers must look ahead and anticipate the risks inherent in their latest designs. A software solution is only as successful as your quality assurance team's ability to test it, your customer's ability to implement it, and your development team's ability to maintain it and extend it. Sometimes we must fight against our very nature - the nature to build, create and extend without boundaries - and produce solutions that protect against high bug counts, heavy support call volumes, expensive consulting engagements (sorry to my system implementation partner friends), and resource-intensive maintenance costs. In other words, solutions that are defensible.
Here are some practical steps that I encourage my product managers to follow as we practice the art of "defensible product management".
Build best practice solutions
When designing a solution that meets the needs of a disparate customer base, avoid endless configuration options to support every unique business process you learned about in your customer feedback sessions. Focus on solutions that reflect best practices, even if it means producing a solution that is not an ideal match for every customer.
Each permutation that you support add to your overall product costs - development resources, documentation, implementation, testing and support. Additionally, if you do end up delivering solutions that are perceived as non-standard or outdated, you risk undermining your credibility in the broader marketplace.
Leverage your development team to understand the costs of different alternatives
Great partnerships between developers and product managers include a give-and-take when designing solutions. Developers feel empowered to offer up alternative suggestions that decrease coding costs; product managers question developers about the technical design to understand where their proposed approaches require overly complex code to implement. I've been in many discussions with developers where the suggestion of a small design change saved us from a nightmare of spaghetti code. I encourage my product managers to seek out these suggestions and carefully consider them, even if it ends up modifying their original design.
Start simple and build incrementally
It is a rare event to roll out a new feature with 100% success - no usability issues, no gaps -- a perfect match to your customer's business needs. When our new features get in the hands of real customers, I expect some aspects of the design to get reactions that I did not anticipate. I want to hear this valuable feedback before I've spend long development cycles implementing a complex solution. Remember that every line of code that doesn't provide value adds empty calories - costs that your product has to carry until you rewrite or redesign.
A skillset built over time
New drivers do not start out good defensive drivers. My older brothers affectionately referred to me as "Crash Mertes" for my first few years behind the wheel. It took me several years, and a few smashed bumpers, to live down that nickname. Similarly, product managers build the instincts for defensive product management through time and experience. But the benefit is real - a more sustainable, higher quality product -- and a lot less crashes along the way!
