PMs need to constantly innovate

• Sukanya Bharati
• August 21, 2024
• Blog
• #gtmstrategy, #productmanager, #productstrategy
• 0 Comments

The most frequent thing you do as a #productmanager,

Might not be helping your product succeed…

And here I am referring to managing the product backlog,

And defining the requirements or scenarios and stories,

You may have some “experts” say things like:

“Feature wars are over” or “Features don’t matter”.

While that statement is to be taken with a pinch (or 2) of salt

The larger point is: are features enough?

In most cases the answer is “No”.

When you are spending so much time:

– talking to customers – getting the requirements cleared

– writing stories and managing backlog – defining sprint scope

– explaining stories and giving clarification – getting dev to implement

– tracking competition – using that to articulate competitive differentiation

What are you missing?

In general doing what others are doing helps you stay relevant.

But, it does not help you get ahead.

That requires #innovation

Inspiration for innovation may come from above activities

Or talking to customers

Or doing something completely different

Innovation need not be in the product

It could be in pricing

It could be in positioning

It could be in the way you distribute

It could even come from interesting partnerships and #gotomarket

One thing is clear

If you only do what others do, you won’t get outsized results.

What do you think of when you consider innovation for your product?

What are things you do beyond product innovation and yet another feature?