Product Management manages different types of complexity. Each type of complexity brings its own set of difficult trade-offs. This fourth article explores this specific challenge, as part of a series deciphering the various talents that Product Management requires.
The first article dealt with the breadth of skills required to create strong product value. The challenge is to develop a global vision with a sensitive understanding of the "details" that make the difference for the user.
A second article zoomed in on stakeholder involvement and anticipation of the product lifecycle, integrating costs beyond the Build to maximize ROI.
Finally, a third article tackled another Product Management challenge for designing the Product: projecting stakeholder issues over various time horizons.
However, a Product Manager requires other skills. Over and above the day-to-day challenges, delicate trade-offs can generate tension and even crises.
The Product Manager is often faced with difficult product arbitration.
The difficulty of arbitration may first of all be linked to the design or realization of the Product itself. Complexity can also come from the environment: in this case, it's the Product context that makes arbitration tricky.
This is the subject of this fourth article.
Complex product arbitration
Firstly, the definition or realization of the Product itself involves complex choices.
The most common difficulty is to reconcile product business objectives (and their deadline imperatives) with contradictory technical constraints. This can lead to short-termist choices such as :
- Sacrifice (temporarily, we think) software quality. The objective may be to meet an urgent customer need, or even to roll out the Roadmap. In fact, unforeseen events in the field or technical obstacles can slow down project completion, leaving the Product Manager with some tricky choices to make. How do you deliver on a strategic date (Christmas, an annual trade show) - while preserving product quality and value?
- Sacrifice (just as temporarily) product consistency over the course of versions, to meet specific customer needs. If these specific customizations pile up (usually poorly documented), it can create a Frankenstein-like result.
These two frequent situations create debt (product or technical). This debt tends to set in, making the product difficult to maintain and evolve.
Avoiding these pitfalls requires a great mastery of the role, constant dialogue with stakeholders, and a keen sense of priorities, with a high resistance to pressure. A forthcoming article will focus on this aspect.
Complex product trade-offs linked to the organizational context
Another frequent source of complexity is that created, voluntarily or not, by stakeholders:
- sponsors (and principals of the product) ;
- the various contributors (e.g. trades, user representatives).
In practice, this is often a source of considerable complexity.
This relational, organizational or managerial context adds additional complexity to Product arbitrations. For example, the Product Manager may find himself at the intersection of antagonistic interests. Imagine a marketing department and a legal department: they may have conflicting concerns and priorities for a future internal application.
The sponsor will generally expect the Product Manager to reconcile everything he wants to find in the product. But this is no easy task. This major task of adjustment and redrawing can lead to lacework. Sometimes, even a seasoned Product Manager will ultimately have to ask his sponsor for arbitration, as he may not be able to reconcile elements that are too divergent.
Product trade-offs made more complex by the global environment
This complexity, linked to the company's internal context, goes hand in hand with external complexity. This concerns the impact of the socio-economic context: the pace of technological or usage innovation, the impact of regulatory or social transformations, etc. Depending on the sector, the pace of change is more or less rapid.
Beyond the obvious cases of market evolution potentially impacting Product definition, other factors can also have an impact.
Our collective experience has shown that unthought-of situations can erupt into reality. Indeed, who would have predicted that entire sectors of the developed economies could be suspended?). The unexpected tends to become more commonplace.
External factors have systemic impacts. This ever-closer interweaving of economic, political, environmental and social factors makes Product Management ever more complex.
Growing instability (geopolitical, social, etc.) creates dramatic shifts and ruptures, with concrete impacts. For example, the outcome of the American election will have an impact on the electric vehicle market (it should, for example, accentuate American protectionism, and by domino effect, also increase competition with Chinese vehicles produced in Europe).
Faced with a product definition and an ideal realization path, the Product Manager must decide whether or not to integrate these constraints, opportunities and limits. These factors come from reality (user feedback, etc.) and from the evolution of scenarios. And these factors also evolve as the project progresses.
Risk management and the exploration of different scenarios obviously enable greater resilience in a Product Roadmap. A forthcoming article develops uncertainty management.
Conclusion: Product Management and different types of complexity
In conclusion, as is often the case in history, it's in moments of crisis that the value of people is revealed. The difference between an almost-successful product and a successful one sometimes comes down to a few key decisions in a crisis situation.
These key moments reveal the strength of a Product Manager who, in the midst of a storm, is able to make the best possible decision, without panicking or being blinded by stress.
That's why this role requires very solid, well-supported professionals!
And in your company, are your Product Managers equipped to face up to these critical moments? And to transform these challenges into opportunities? Have they mastered the tools they need to build resilience and strengthen their skills? Are these resources in place to turn crisis into opportunity and guarantee the success of your products?
