A good product manager gets the product from A to B. A great product manager makes the decisions no one else wants to make.
However, making decisions is not always as simple as choosing an option. Often, there are conflicting politics, agendas, perspectives, etc. that come into play. As much as we’d love to have every decision be made objectively, the simple fact that people are involved means there will always be a level of subjectivity present in the decisions that need to be made. And, because of that, oftentimes decision making is just as much about risk management as it is about data analytics.
That being said, I want to share the most common mistakes I see product managers make when it comes to decision making.
(1) Don’t wait for perfect data — You’ll never have all the data you need to make a decision. There’ll always be some part of it that is unclear or ambiguous. A lot of what will help you over come this is to develop your product sense and intuition.
(2) Don’t let the loudest voices decide — Sooner or later, you’ll need to work with stakeholders who may overshadow others. Be mindful of this and prioritize strategy and impact over all.
(3) Don’t forget to define success upfront — If you don’t know what to measure, how will you know if you succeeded or not?
In closing, remember that any decision is better than no decision; indecision is something you should strive to avoid at all costs. Like I alluded above, there’ll always be a “grey area” somewhere in the decisions you need to make. The best of product managers will make decisions despite this grey area by balancing the influence of the known and unknown.
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