A fundamental trait for Product Managers is their adeptness in navigating three distinct timeframes on a daily basis — “the past, the present, and the future”.
I firmly believe that success in the Product Management role hinges on one’s ability to seamlessly integrate the “past, present, and future” into their daily tasks and decision-making processes. Although it’s accurate that numerous other roles do require consideration of the past, present, and future, I find the Product Management role particularly reliant on this approach.
Product development is never done and it should not be in this age. Things change, customer needs change, customer tastes change, tech changes -> ultimately good Product Managers understand that and they instill within themselves a sense of timelessness
In many ways, the very essence of Product Management’s responsibilities drives professionals in this field to adopt such a multi-time-dimensional approach. Product Managers are tasked with discovering, building, and launching features — a process that inherently prompts reflection on past iterations and considerations for future enhancements. Moreover, they must strategize for upcoming developments, continually assessing what to build next to maintain relevance and competitiveness in the market. This holistic perspective is ingrained in their daily operations, reflecting the dynamic backward and forward-thinking nature of their role.
Past?
Understanding the Past is important as it helps answer past trends, user behaviors, and product successes/failures. There is a considerable advantage to learning from mistakes and building on successes. Product Managers should set up dashboards, set up alerts for various metrics they care for, and block time to look at these metrics and synthesize takeaways. It helps answer questions such as Did we build the right stuff? Did we course correct? Did we achieve the outcome? For who? For the customer? Understanding the past ultimately helps explore, iterate, and enhance products in a manner that not only benefits the customer but also fuels business growth.
Present?
The Present is all about running the day-to-day show as product builders. Planning sprint activities, working with the team of engineers and designers to plan work, execute, create launch plans, etc… Managing expectations and timeliness is a key component that happens in the present.
Future?
The Future is all about what to build next. Product managers have to constantly think about the future and connect it with the customer needs and business needs. While the engineers are building the present, the Product Manager along with his team of designers, stakeholders, etc.. has the daunting task of thinking and planning the next build or rather the future.
By integrating the “past, present, and future” into their daily tasks and decision-making processes, Product Managers get a great deal of good stuff for free. A few are listed below
- Learning from Mistakes
- Building on Successes
- Staying Updated
- Making Informed Decisions
- Adapting to Change
- Anticipating Trends
- Building for Scalability
- Innovating Proactively
I’ve come to a realization that the role of a Product Manager involves bridging the gap between the past, present, and future, which presents its own set of challenges. However, despite its difficulties, the endeavor is undoubtedly worthwhile!
It also makes a convincing case to prove that product development is not
Plan -> build -> ship (straight line)
But rather it is
Circle -> where you are in an infinite loop -> plan -> build -> delivery is an escape hatch that’s transient
Product Manager from the past, present, and future…