This post is a personal reflection on the excellent post written Rohini Vibha and introduced earlier on Hectic Pace. 4. It’s not about being a star — It’s about managing a universe. Part 3 of this post might have left you with the impression that failure to launch rests squarely on your shoulders. Even though Vibha reminds us in her own story about QuickBooks that “the launch” was her responsibility, she was also relieved to realize that its success or failure was not 100% her responsibility. A good product manager gets the right people in the room. A great product manager listens to the …

This post is a personal reflection on the excellent post written Rohini Vibha and introduced earlier on Hectic Pace. See part 1 and part 2. 3. Product Managers are neither designers nor engineers.  Do what you do best. Focus on strategy and the desire of end-users. Not all of us will have the luxury of product development divisions waiting to contribute their best lines of code to a problem, but a product manager must emphasize strategy and vision. You will be inclined to pick colors and layouts and sand the rough edges of workflows and user interfaces. Unless you’re also the lead …

This post is a personal reflection on the excellent post written Rohini Vibha and introduced earlier on Hectic Pace. See part 1 of this series here. 2. Your product is only as good as a user’s perception of it. In today’s personalized web word, the user is always in charge. That’s not the same thing as “the customer is always right,” but regardless, you need to check your ego at the door. My favorite writing professor in college once gave me advice that I follow to this day. He told me to find my favorite sentence in what I’ve written and …