Who are the 12 product people that stepped up to form the Product Management Manifesto working group? Meet Felix!
Each week we’re introducing you to two working group members with Q&A on their perspective on why a manifesto is so critical today.
This week’s spotlight is on Felix Watson Jr., Product Manager at Google. Find out his thoughts on:
How product management has evolved
Key challenges that a manifesto must address
Why we need a manifesto now
What’s motivating his journey as the team kicks off
What drew you to this Product Management Manifesto and working group?
When I started out as a PM I struggled to understand my role, execute effectively, and earn my first promotion. After connecting with hundreds of PMs around the world, I was surprised to learn that my struggles were not unique. The Product Management Manifesto is what I wish I had as a new PM: a resource that could guide me in understanding and leveraging the principles that product managers use to be effective. I’m incredibly honored for the opportunity to continue giving back to the PM community through this working group.
How have you personally seen the Product Management role evolve in your career?
I’ve seen the importance of the discovery phase increase over time. Product teams are realizing that most feature ideas won’t have any impact so we need to carefully choose which to build based on data, customer feedback, and low-cost experiments.
I’ve worked on teams where the focus was on the delivery of new features instead of discovering what our customers want and need. We would develop a list of features that were requested by key customers or present in competing products. PMs would then scope each feature so that the team could deliver as many as possible in a given time frame.
As discovery became more important, the Product Management role evolved to include more data analysis, user research, and experimentation responsibilities. I personally had to develop my skills in querying product data, defining and conducting research studies, and planning experiments.
What is one major challenge you see product people grapple with frequently that our principles should address?
The balance between tactical and strategic. Many PMs struggle to find time for the deep thinking required to develop a sound product strategy. Our principles should help Product People understand how to best spend their time to be effective.
What are some of the reasons you feel a manifesto specific to Product Management is needed now?
Product Management is one of the fastest-growing careers in tech and the growing interest in the field comes with a proliferation of product-related content. While there is plenty of good content available, there is no single resource that lays out the key principles for the role. While the role continues to evolve, it’s been around long enough to establish principles that will guide the next generation of product leadership as the discipline grows.
In what ways do the Agile Manifesto for Software Development and/or other existing frameworks fall short for Product Management?
The Agile Manifesto focuses on the delivery of software (an output) and the essence of Product Management is to focus on business results (outcomes). The Agile Manifesto does a great job at laying out the “how” for engineering teams: how they should work together and how they should build the product. Effective Product Management requires sound principles for defining the “what” for product teams. This goes beyond delivering “working software”, or the primary measure of progress, as the Agile Manifesto defines it, and requires principles that guide product managers through the discovery phase and helps them identify and communicate what to build.
We’re in a critical moment for diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I). In what ways do you hope to see greater DE&I reflected in the work and contribution of product people?
Product Managers hold significant influence over products that billions of people use every day. They often decide what gets built and when it’s fit to be released into the world. I hope to see product people embrace the importance of diversity and inclusion in building successful products and advocate for diversity on their teams and in their user research studies. Additionally, diversity and inclusion in teams alone will not ensure equity for members of product teams or the users of the products they build. I hope to see product people become more sensitive to this fact and actively uncover gaps in equity on their teams and products that could negatively affect equity for users.
What I love most about being a PM is working with people and building consensus. Holding a meeting with multiple stakeholders and getting to see the nods of agreement as we develop a collective vision of success is energizing.
- Felix Watson Jr.