25 Tips to Becoming a Better Product Manager

1. Make the biggest impact while using the fewest resources.
2. An engineer’s time is very expensive and valuable to a company. Always recommend solutions that will help save your engineers' time (and the company’s money/resources).
3. Take full ownership and responsibility for the success or failure of the product.
4. Start with the problem, not the solution.
5. Always communicate in simple terms to avoid confusion. Break down complex ideas into digestible lists and bullet points.
6. Never confuse your client (the person paying for the product) with your user (the person using the product). For a product to be successful, it must add value and/or solve pain for the end user.
7. Define the what, the why, and the who behind the product. Design & Engineering will figure out the how.
8. Make sure your product strategy decisions are guided by research insights and specific user needs (and never based on assumptions).
9. Don’t ask users what they want. Understand the users’ needs and pain points. Then build a product that solves a specific problem.
10. Learn how & when to say no.
11. “Not now” doesn’t mean “not ever” (when it comes to product features that can’t be added due to limited resources or scope).
12. Learn how to prioritize product features (you can’t say yes to everything).
13. Sell the benefit, not the feature.
14. QUALITY meetings are more important than QUANTITY. Keep all meetings productive and focused on achieving a specific outcome. And be respectful of everyone’s time.
15. Treat every challenge as an opportunity to solve a problem and make an impact.
16. Aim for progress, not perfection.
17. It’s not your job to know everything. Rely on your team’s expertise.
18. Don’t make decisions immediately. It’s always OK to tell someone, “let me find out and get back to you later.”