Indecisiveness: The Second Anti-trait of a Product Manager

Product Management Anti-traits
---

2) Indecisiveness
‍

‍
Product Managers are the true personification of Answer bots.

What is the goal? What success message do I use here? Do I need to handle this edge case? How are we marketing this? Can you share the email content?

PMs strive towards removing ambiguity on what needs to be done, paving a path for engineers and designers to make progress.

I'm not talking about just high-level input on roadmaps and metrics. PMs are expected to make hundreds of micro-decisions every day at the drop of a hat.

No, you can't A/B test everything. The data doesn't always spell out a plan of action either.

At the same times, it's not arbitrary selection.

It requires adopting some mental framework to methodically process a situation based on available info and identifying a path that'll add value.

If one struggles in comparing ideas or worse, leans on others to make a decision on their behalf, then it's going to be an uphill climb as a PM.

The accountability of a PM is such that they have to call tough shots. If they don't, they stall the entire team.

Be decisive.

Stay tuned for #3.