Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1)
First, let me say this post was inspired by a tweet from the CrankyPM asking the following question.
(click to enlarge)
Now, I’m pretty certain she was looking for answers like Section 508, Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPAA, Open Source licensing etc. But those are all pretty boring subject areas, quite honestly.
As long as you understand the equivalent of the first few paragraphs of the appropriate Wikipedia page for any of those topics, you’ve got pretty much all you need to do your job. And if you need to know more, you can go learn more or ask for an opinion from your legal team.
But there are a whole set of laws and rules that virtually all software product managers should know. These will help you in all sorts of situations and certainly are much more applicable than the legal regulations I listed above.
Product Management Axioms
I’ve got to start with these as they’re my rules and there’s nothing wrong with a bit of self-promotion. 
- Nail it, then Scale it
- Change is a process, not an event
- Every activity is part of a sale
- Think horizontally, act vertically
I won’t explain these here, but you can view this presentation, or read this article to understand these better.
Newton’s First Law (of Motion)
This comes from the world of physics and can be stated as:
A body in motion will stay in motion and a body at rest will stay at rest unless/until external forces are applied to them
In short, things will remain the same until external pressures are applied to them. Can you see how this might apply to the world of Product Management? For example, any product or project will not change it’s trajectory until external pressures (market, competition, customer, executive, and most importantly Product Management) are applied to it.
Apply this rule and be the external force that changes the trajectory of that product/project in a positive way!
Pareto’s Principle
More commonly known as the 80/20 Rule, this principle originated in 1906, when Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto used it to describe the unequal distribution of wealth in his country. He observed that 80% of the wealth was owned by 20% of the people.
In business, this can be applied in a myriad of ways. Here are a few that are relevant to Product Managers:
- For any given release, 80% of all Engineering resources will be needed to deliver 20% of your P1 requirements
- 80% of your product revenue will be generated by 20% of the sales team
- 80% of the time you make the right decisions, but people only remember the other 20%
- When creating revenue forecasts, you’ll be wrong 80% of the time. The other 20% of the time, Sr. Management will think you are wrong and tell you to raise them
Murphys Law
This one needs little explanation. The formal statement is:
If anything can go wrong, it will.
We all know how true this is. There are many variants to this law that PMs should keep in mind. Here are a few.
- Nothing is as easy as it looks.
- Everything takes longer than you think.
- Left to themselves, things tend to go from bad to worse.
- If everything seems to be going well, you have obviously overlooked something.
- Every solution breeds new problems.
Amara’s Law
Engineer and futurist Roy Amara is credited with the following quote that bears his name:
We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run.
If I had a dollar for every time I’ve seen that law upheld…especially the first half. Usually it’s a CTO or other similarly minded person waxing eloquently about the tremendous, dare I say “disruptive” impact of their next technological wonder.
Amara’s Law is a cautionary one but with a promising outcome, if you have the patience to wait long enough.
I’ll continue with more relevent rules and laws in Part 2.
Saeed
Related posts:
- Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 2)
- Product Managers need time to breathe…
- Questions for Product Managers
- Worth Repeating: Do Product Managers need Domain Knowledge?
- 6 rules to help ensure you’re asking the right questions
#Product #Management – Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/aG6tLI
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://j.mp/dBJVpO
Thought Provoking from @onpm Product Management Axioms http://bit.ly/ayP9qQ
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://ow.ly/17O0b5
Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
New Era of Business Leaders http://bit.ly/apGLeL#datamining #business #leadership http://bit.ly/dry2gZ
New Era of Business Leaders http://bit.ly/apGLeL#datamining #business #leadership http://bit.ly/9cKADK
RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt #in
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) | On Product Management: Nicely relevant. http://bit.ly/d4ZtkC
Actually, Saeed,the cranky product manager must disagree. (Perhaps she should disagree violently). No way are Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA, section 508, and so on, BORING!!!
And you’re totally wrong that product managers can find what they need to know about these laws and regulations by looking at the first three paragraphs of the Wikipedia entry. Seriously, have you looked at the Wikipedia entries for these?
They’re all about how you need an advisory board and internal controls and accounting blah blah, but nothing tells you that as a product manager you need to be very careful about giving road map presentations. Or that if you want to sell to hospitals, you need to make sure that any data that your system stores that *could* be used to store patient information should be encrypted. Etc.
How is THAT a boring blog post? My adrenaline is pumping just thinking about it.
Cranky,
To each his or her own.
If thinking about HIPAA or Sarbanes-Oxley gives you an adrenaline rush, then more power to you. But for the vast majority of software PMs, these are honestly a very minor part of the job, unless of course, you are selling into healthcare verticals or are helping manage financial data etc.
Product Managers need to be business focused, but that doesn’t mean they need to know business regulations inside and out. They need awareness, context and understanding of these topics and be able to get answers to specific questions from trained specialists when necessary. i.e as I said “And if you need to know more, you can go learn more or ask for an opinion from your legal team.”
And just for the record, I said “first few”, not “first three” paragraphs.
But if you want to violently disagree, that’s fine too. At least I gave you credit for inspiring me.
Saeed
RT @utollwi: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://ow.ly/17O0b5
RT @crankypm: RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
RT @onpm: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) #prodmgmt http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://ff.im/-mpxeS
RT @fcaballero: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://ff.im/-mpxeS
RT @fcaballero: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://ff.im/-mpxeS
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/baPo23
RT @ThomasShaw: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/baPo23
RT @onpm: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) #prodmgmt http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
RT @sjohnson717: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
RT @sjohnson717: RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
Good stuff here. RT @onpm: Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
[...] } Continuing from Part 1, here are more Rules and Laws to help Product Managers in their [...]
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand http://tinyurl.com/32gvujf #in #prodmgmt
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) – http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
RT @crankypm: RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
RT @crankypm: RT @onpm: Inspired by @crankypm – Rules and Laws that Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://bit.ly/9BaxUz #prodmgmt
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) – http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) – http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
RT @onpm: Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) #prodmgmt http://bit.ly/9BaxUz
rules, laws, and axioms all product managers should understand http://bit.ly/bY2XAd (via @onpm)
Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand (part 1) http://ff.im/-nOnT2
thinks this is an interesting look at the "Rules and Laws Product Managers Should Understand." – http://t.co/DoRXoKva