Perfectionism: The Third Anti-trait of a Product Manager

Product Management Anti-traits:
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3) Perfectionism:

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This sounds controversial but allow me to explain.

Product development is an endeavor that always happens with finite resources.

You have limited budget, people & time.

Sure, some ventures might be better funded than others but as far as time is concerned, everyone's on an even keel.

With rising competition, the need for shipping value to customers quickly becomes essential.

A PM that aims for unrelenting "perfection" at the cost of a healthy cadence of iterative releases does more harm than good.

Release draughts reflect lack of agility, slow response times to user needs & stifled progress to product-market fit.

Therefore, PMs need to have a barometer of "good enough" when developing products.

That doesn't mean letting go of basic standards of quality.

It means knowing when attempting to improve something further will fetch little incremental value.

Firstly, you really can't "perfect" a product in a silo. It needs to live in the wild for a PM to observe and adapt. You may "think" you're making improvements but users may or may not agree.

Secondly, sacrificing go-to-market time lines might cause unintentional churn.

"Perfection" in product management is a never-ending discovery process.