Product Philosophy

Published in

Little world of carnivas

6 min readMar 28, 2017

Prologue

One of the most enthusiastic product managers I know, Ravi Kumar Sapata, (in whose podcast show I appeared once) reached out to me a week back.

He is in the process of building a website on ‘Product Philosophy’ of various people and wanted me to share mine. I was like — Oh, am I supposed to have a product philosophy? Well, I am someone who (thinks he) is fairly methodical and have several aphorisms (from philosophers & pop-psychologists alike) to live by — both in work life and otherwise. But specifically a philosophy on products? I had not thought of it. Paraphrasing Socrates, an unexamined product philosophy may not be worth having.

So, I decided to pull things from all my ‘Mental Models’ notes (product management or otherwise) in Evernote to make a coherent article for others to read. Without further do, here is my own Product Philosophy.

What is Product Philosophy?

Before we get to the core, let us define what Product Philosophy is.

Product: Let us consider ‘Product’ as a High-Tech one that involves software. That is, something that is created/delivered/consumed using a computing device. Well, software is eating up everything now but for this write-up, I am not consider an FMCG Product or something that is purely hardware (say an unconnected bicycle/motor-cycle/gas stove/ light bulb).

Philosophy: That leaves us with ‘Philosophy’. For this, let us take the dictionary meaning of ‘theory or attitude that acts as a guiding principle for behavior’. This means, product philosophy is a bunch of mental models and frameworks that guide me while working as a product manager. To be clear, these are NOT ‘tools’ (like Asana, JIRA) or even ‘methodologies’ (like Scrum, Kanban).

Tools/Methodologies change often. Philosophies don’t. They are abstract — they guide on how to take decisions and how to behave at different scenarios one goes through through life. In this case, life as a product manager. They are a ‘way of life’, ‘a journey’ and not a ‘goal to achieve’.

With the definitions done, let us jump into the core. What you will find below are a bunch of ‘Virtues’, which together form my ‘Product Philosophy’.

My Product Philosophy

Product Management styles can differ from company to company, industry to industry and so on. What I will list here are things that a product manager can do irrespective of what the organization has for its process. Typically organization’s process would be the tools and methodologies. These are beyond those. In a sense, these are akin to Franklin’s virtues that I would like to follow. A lot of these could apply to any profession but I find them to be so valuable as a product manager.

True North: As a product manager, my true north is to obsess over what the customer of my product needs. They could be stated/unstated needs. Here, customer could mean the user or the buyer. Trade offs between a user & buyer can and will be handled. I will make it valuable & usable to them! In other words, I will not make it valuable only to me, my boss or my company. My true north is what is valuable to the customer (& which makes money for my company — that is the order) and I will strive everyday to get there.
The Basics: I will understand my company’s vision, its business strategy, its product strategy, its positioning vis-a-vis competitors, the segment we address and the persona so well that any decision I take will sub-consciously be influenced by those. If my company does not have any of these things articulated clearly, I will help create that articulation.
Think Big but Course Correct: Like anything in life, building/maintaining a product is a series of course corrections and balancing all the way. Like an airplane, which apparently is off course 99% of its journey (do not know if this is really true — but works as a metaphor). So, on an every day basis, I will do course corrections towards my True North. I will think long term and think big. I will not underestimate what I can achieve in the long term by citing short term issues. I understand that the most common path to mediocrity is “being practical”.
Focus Versus Flare: At any moment of the day, I will be aware of the mode of operation I should employ. I will ‘flare’ when I should (brainstorming, open ended user-research) and will ‘focus’ when I should (writing specifications, synthesizing user inputs).
Earn Trust First: Wherever I work, I will first fit in with the team culture and then make changes organically. I will not display any unwanted heroism. Without any manipulative tendencies, I will deploy tools like Ben Franklin effect, Robert Cialdini’s Influence & Presuasion and win over people.
Owner but No CEO: I will take complete ownership for my product and its outcomes (versus just the output). But I will not call myself the CEO. Every stakeholder is important. For my authority, I will strive to be so good in the product/tech/domain and be relentlessly resourceful that no one can ignore me.
Over Communicate: I will ensure that there is no information that is just in my brain. Everything will get documented in one place or another (depending on the context). I will err on the side of ‘over’ communicating than ‘under’ communicating. When I do, I will match up to the communication style & frequency of the person involved — their background, current position, domain knowledge and so on.
Learn & Be Curious: I will develop multi disciplinary knowledge by constant learning. I will remember that my goal is to find the best answer, not to give the best one I have. As I learn, I will change my opinions when evidence points that I was wrong. I will have strong views weakly held and not the other way.
Set High Standards: I will strive to set the highest possible standards in whatever I do — something that would positively affect others. I will paint the back of the fence too. I will be disciplined to the extent that it ‘creates’ energy, does not destroy.
Bias for Action: I will ‘act’ every day, even if it means very small steps towards a goal. I will not indulge in grandiose theories with nothing to show for in action. I will be on the ‘quantity’ side of the ceramic class.
Chase Antelopes: Both for my own time and for my product roadmap, I will ensure I chase antelopes and not field mice

I will internalize that all aspects of life have ‘Lindy’ effect. I will not get conned by the latest fads in terms of my tools & processes. I will revisit my virtues, tools and frameworks every year and throw away the ones that are not relevant anymore.

Bonus: Material not very popular

Beyond the virtues, I want to share here some tools & write-ups that are very useful but not commonly read/used. This is not a comprehensive tool guide for a product manager — There are many good sources for that, be it tools, methodologies, books or knowledge articles. These are beyond those.

Go through these and figure for yourself:

Conclusion

This seems to have shaped up as a good v0.01 document. Pre-alpha release, if you will. Nonetheless, I see this as an evolving document — which will keep changing as I go through my work life further.

May be force be with every product manager around!

(This is published by Ravi here where you can find many others too)