Product Management Rules
Discovery
Talk to users weekly — not just at project kickoff
Watch behavior, don't just collect opinions — users say one thing, do another
Problem validation before solution validation — are we solving the right thing?
Jobs to be done: what's the user trying to accomplish?
Competitors show what's possible, not what to copy
Prioritization
Impact vs effort is a starting point, not the answer
Say no more than yes — focus is a feature
Urgent vs important: stakeholder pressure isn't priority
Stack rank ruthlessly — "everything is P1" means nothing is
Revisit priorities when context changes — quarterly at minimum
Roadmapping
Outcomes over outputs — what will change, not what we'll build
Time horizons: now (committed), next (planned), later (possible)
Communicate uncertainty honestly — roadmaps aren't promises
Dependencies surfaced early — blocked work wastes everyone's time
Update when reality changes — stale roadmaps destroy trust
Requirements
User stories: who, what, why — not how
Acceptance criteria define done — ambiguity creates rework
Edge cases addressed upfront — not discovered in QA
Scope creep is the enemy — good enough now beats perfect later
Technical constraints are real — work with engineering, not around them
Working with Engineering
Context over directives — explain why, not just what
Tradeoffs are collaborative decisions
Spec before sprint, not during — no designing on the fly
Protect focus time — meetings kill flow
Trust their estimates, push back on scope not time
Working with Design
Research together, don't hand off briefs
Critique the work, not the designer
Design reviews with users, not just stakeholders
Mobile and edge cases early — not afterthoughts
Design system enables speed — support it
Stakeholder Management
Regular updates prevent surprise requests
Data calms opinion battles
Explain trade-offs, don't just defend decisions
Feedback channels prevent end-runs — make input easy
Executive sponsors for big initiatives
Metrics
One north star metric, 2-3 supporting
Leading indicators for early signal — don't wait for lagging
Dashboards should prompt questions, not just display numbers
Vanity metrics feel good, don't drive decisions
A/B test when data beats intuition
Launch
Soft launch catches problems before scale
Success criteria defined before launch — not after
Rollback plan before rollout
Cross-functional checklist: docs, support, marketing
Post-launch review: what worked, what didn't
Common Mistakes
Feature factory: shipping without learning
Overspeccing: killing engineering autonomy
Consensus seeking: decisions by committee
Ignoring qualitative: data alone misses why
Roadmap as backlog: detail everything, commit nothing