If you want to be a bad product manager, don’t make any decisions until you’ve fully researched every possible angle and discussed its implications with all relevant stakeholders. Without that legwork up front, you risk making a bad decision, which would diminish how you as a product manager are viewed. For most decisions there isn’t [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, insist that everything be done the best possible way as soon as possible. Quality is important, and if you start tolerating less than optimal solutions, that just sets the precedent that it’s appropriate to not always do things the best possible way. You shouldn’t have to [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, you need to always be actively managing your product and available to answer any questions. You’re in charge of the product, and you really can’t afford to relax. Emails from customers need responses, salespeople need answers to questions, developers need clarifications on requirements, and management needs [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, surprise users with major changes to your product. Unveiling changes at launch is a great way to build buzz and create excitement around the changes. There’s really no reason to tell people ahead of time — what if something goes wrong and you don’t launch as [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, make sure your product has lots of options. Some users might want to use keyboard shortcuts, others might want to use just the mouse, and some might want a command line interface. How can you possibly pick one that works best for everyone? You can’t! So, [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, let the politics of working in an organization get you down. Get frustrated easily at any roadblock and complain like mad. Talk about how things would be so much easier at a smaller/bigger company, how they way things work within your organization are backwards, and especially [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, provide lots of answers. Make sure you immediately and fully answer all questions from others within the organization and from customers. Don’t bother clarifying, since it should be clear from the question what you’re being asked. Product management is all about talking, right? — talking to [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, say yes to everything. Say yes to every customer feature request. Say yes to every modification that sales asks for that they ensure you is “necessary” to close a sale. Say yes to every whim of every executive and stakeholder. Say yes to every suggestion that [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, make customers and users learn your lingo. Use internal acronyms and come up with unique names for common features. Menu names like “File,” “Edit,” and “View” are so passe and are missed opportunities for branding your product. Marketing materials should have lots of references to important-sounding [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, complain about your lack of authority and attempt to gain authority over necessary resources. How can you be expected to “manage” a product if you don’t “manage” anyone working on your product? You need control over developers, engineers, marketers, designers, and all of the other members [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, compete on the same dimensions that have always been used in your industry. Another web host offers 1GB of disk space, so you should offer 1.5GB. Another search engine indexes 1 million documents, so you should index 2 million. Another photo editing software offers 25 filters, [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, put your well-known brand name on any new related product. You should leverage the brand equity that you’ve built up. Even if the new product is not really that similar to your current product, the fact that it uses the same name will help attract attention. [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, use focus groups for all of your market research. The focus group is a time-tested tool, used by thousands of companies around the world. It’s relatively easy to set up and facilitate, and pretty much everyone knows how they work. They are very efficient as well; [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, keep comparing your product and company to Google. Chastise your data center for not having thousands of generic servers that can be pulled and swapped at a moment’s notice. Complain to HR about how your workplace doesn’t have free lunch and ice cream, open office space, [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, make sure to describe all of the benefits of your product. Devote time to each equally, since different customers have different criteria for selecting products. Make sure not to leave anything out, since if it’s not included on the list, customers may think you don’t offer [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, first implement the features that are quickest to develop. Yes, there may be some major important things that you want in your product, but if those are going to take a lot of time, first focus on the small, quick things to do, even if they’re [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, make sure your product is infinitely customizable. Why run the risk of losing customers because it doesn’t work exactly the way they want? What’s more “customer focused” than letting customers tailor their experience of using your product exactly to their needs? Not sure if it’s better [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, be timid and cautious. You don’t want to make any bad decisions, so be very careful about everything you do. Make sure to clear everything with all of the impacted stakeholders, and if any of them question your initiatives, be sure to put everything on hold [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, give your product away for free without defined metrics or eventual business models. First you need to get people hooked. Get them interested in your product, get them addicted to your product, and then later on you can figure out how to make money off of [...]

If you want to be a bad product manager, answer customer comments or questions and be on your way. When customers email you with a question about a certain feature that doesn’t exist in your product, reply nicely that it doesn’t but you’ll consider it, or, better yet, explain why it doesn’t. If someone stops [...]