10 things a Product Manager can do to earn trust from product teams
If you are a developer, designer, test analyst, or part of a team that develops digital products, you probably identify yourself with one or more items on this list. If you currently are or aspire to a career as a Product Manager / Owner, read this article carefully and draw your own conclusions.
1. Know what you don’t know. As a Product Manager, you need to be a generalist that knows a lot from lots of things, but if there is anything that can make you score a few points, it is to assume that developers and designers understand more than you do about their work.
Never use technical terms or quote a methodology that you're not familiar with or do not know in depth what lies behind it: reputation loss is immediate. Instead, assume a position of an interested learner, challenging your team to clarify all aspects of their work. If you're secure that you know more than them, share knowledge with humility and excitement.
2. Protect the team from interference. It may look simple, but we all know it isn’t. Whenever executives, sales teams, support, and customer success directly contact people working on a product of feature, something is wrong.
Always there will be worried executives and insecure salespeople. Part of your job is to maintain a flow of information that looks crystal clear so no one feels the need to ask or pressure someone else than you.
3. Know what’s going on. Be present in all the essential ceremonies and meetings making sure you understand all chosen paths. Surprises that you collect in deliveries are proportionally tied to your overall engagement.
Trust is built with reciprocity. You'll get the trust in the same extent of your team efforts.
4. Study the nature of the product. Perhaps this is one of the biggest frustration items for product team members. The Product Manager must be the well-informed person of the team, being the gatekeeper of the truth, analyzing whether each building block is aligned with the product vision.
5. Emphasize the existence of a product's purpose and vision. If your product does not have a purpose and a clearly expressed vision, stop and build it. High-performance teams are always moving in the same direction, product vision is their North Star.
6. Focus on problems, not solutions. It may sound controversial but experienced managers are aware that if they do not know exactly the nature of the problem that causes pain in the client, it is better not to build anything.
One of the biggest problem-solving mistakes is seeking solutions without diving deep to understand the problem, or even to understand if the problem presented is just a symptom of a bigger problem. The art of problem-solving is asking the correct questions and not just start brainstorming solutions.
There is nothing more frustrating for a developer or designer than seeing that the work done is not used. Imagine being a chef who worked hard to make a new dish that will never be seen or tasted. That's the same feeling.
7. Keep everyone on the same page. Communicate excessively. Document it. Diagram. Have a good enough road map to get everyone’s buy-in.
Make sure that all members are able to consistently answer questions like the following:
- Which customer problem does this feature solve?
- Do you believe the proposed solution is aligned with the product vision?
8. Be curious. Curiosity is paramount for a Product Manager, but taking this to each member of the team can be wonderful. Someone who is genuinely interested in the work of developers and has the ability to go deep to understand how things work can earn trust quickly.
Nothing pleases you more than a real admiration and curiosity for someone’s work.
9. Have team spirit. If there is one thing that Product Managers have to do well, it is to achieve results through the work of people. You have to get things right a lot and fail less enough to make teams shine.
When something goes wrong take full responsibility, when it goes right, give credit to the team.
10. Have empathy for everyone involved. A product is made by people and for people. You have to put the customer’s shoes on. However, what you're doing about the team? Are you understanding the needs of all parties? I’ve seen tired and unmotivated teams after delivering something of value to the customer. This is something that not sustainable, and the team will collapse soon or later.
A worst-case scenario is when team members feel that the Product Manager is not giving the right attention to the customer’s problems. When a member of the team shows more empathy for customers than the Product Manager, something is wrong.
Do you agree with these points? Do you believe that something important is missing? Leave it in the comments.
