link: why product management is easy

Product management savant and Twitter fancier Adam Bullied has written the single best blog post on product management I've read in a long time. It's honest, it's heartfelt, and it frames the challenge that all product managers face at the beginning of their tenures. But most of all, it exposes one of the great secrets of product management - it's not rocket science, kids.

He sums it up nicely in his closing:

All the job is is connecting dots and knowing where to look for the data you need to make decisions. Don’t get overwhelmed by all the noise.

Let me suggest however that it's easier for certain sorts of people than others - but that's true of everything. A product management temperament is the primary prerequisite for success, and that temperament is more difficult to quantify than the work activities. We spend a lot of time here at ack/nak on topics that relate to the question of temperament, as you've probably figured out.

The job of product management does change when you start to operate at an executive level, where there is less interest in the daily grind of PM and more interest in how your portfolio of products lines up with the strategic direction of the company. I definitely need to suppress my inner geek more these days, practice more restraint, listen more. . .which are definitely issues of temperament.

All in, great post, Adam. If you haven't done it already, add Write This Down to your list of blogs you must read if you're a practicing product manager. Or Twitter fancier.