The Stories I Come Across as a Visiting CPO

Recently, I've begun thinking about some patterns and narratives that I keep noticing as I work with companies as a visiting product lead. Although the problems seem obvious at first, they often stem from deeper underlying issues that need addressing for the product management discipline to thrive. So let me tell you some stories I have heard over the years and my conclusions.

Story 1: The Mini-CEO

The Managements at many companies want product managers to act as "the CEOs of their Products", handling complete responsibility for their products and all the team members. They expect comprehensive strategies and assertive leadership over Engineering, Marketing, and Sales to pave a clear path to market dominance. When the results are not showing much improvement, there may be frustration towards Product Managers for not taking enough accountability and not making the team work hard enough.

Analysis and Insights: For context, the term "mini-CEO" does somewhat make sense because product managers do have broad responsibilities, including decision-making, strategic planning, and leading cross-functional teams, much like a CEO. However, it's misleading because product managers lack ultimate authority, focus only on specific products, and depend heavily on their ability to influence without authority. And because they are not the direct managers of functions such as Engineering, Marketing and Sales it is impossible to take full responsibility for their performance.

In product circles, the whole mini-CEO concept has received a lot of criticism, I know. But hear me out. This expectation, in my view, mirrors a fundamental need for clear accountability and a desire to succeed. It suggests a willingness to trust someone to make significant impacts—the product manager. This is not a bad starting place. However, often it also indicates that from the point of view of management, there may be problems with the performance of not just the Product Team, but also Engineering, Sales, Marketing, and beyond. So, the situation almost feels like a Hail Mary - a last hope that "fixing" Product Management will lead everyone to success. I've noticed that usually, this scenario arises in companies lacking a product lead or a well-established product culture. My approach here typically involves conducting an organizational audit to pinpoint gaps in skills or competencies, making sure the right people are in the right roles, and setting the stage for tailored leadership development.

Story 2: The Ever-Changing Roadmap and The Sales Dictate

The product managers at some companies are masters of strategic thinking and roadmapping, yet they can't seem to get any strategy to stick due to every new sales team feedback causing a shift. This dynamic leads to a reactive management style where immediate sales targets disrupt and dictate product features, sidelining long-planned projects. This continually disrupts planned trajectories, and work that has already been started often gets shelved in favour of new action items. Sometimes this has been going on for a while, and there is some frustration towards the engineering team for not getting things done.

Analysis and Insights: These frequent pivots indicate a reactive rather than proactive management style, lacking stability and long-term vision, often due to a lack of strategic frameworks and minimal customer research. It reveals an overarching issue where the sales goals overshadow product strategy instead of them being treated with equal importance. Obviously enough, this also seems to happen more in companies suffering from a lack of strong product leadership, but there might be other underlying issues. My first clue to identifying this is the fact that the product backlog is filled with sales, marketing, and customer support items and does not speak of customer needs. To combat this, I usually start by bridging gaps between company goals and market needs through rigorous customer and market research to bring the customer's voice back into the picture, steering the company towards a more customer- and value-centric approach.

Story 3: The Agility Paradox and The Echo Chamber of Updates

In response to the aforementioned rapidly changing strategies, product managers are encouraged to become better at being Agile in order to adapt to the quick pivots and adaptations in response to the changing directives. This can sometimes almost feel like micromanagement. Usually, there’s confusion about project statuses and outputs. The product managers spend considerable time crafting detailed status updates and progress reports but are somehow not able to get their message across.

Analysis and Insights: Here, 'agility' is mistakenly equated with the ability to change quickly without real flexibility or responsiveness to customer insights - to obey instructions. Usually, I have found this kind of situation indicates that there has been a disruption of trust, or there is an underlying crisis such as the company falling significantly behind their KPIs - stakeholder conversations are no longer dialogues, but rather monologues directed at the product. And it is not done out of malice - usually, the sales and marketing teams are truly doing their best to save whatever they can. Nevertheless, a reset in communication is needed. I have seen success in facilitating dialogues between Product and stakeholders to realign expectations and improve communication channels. This approach fosters a genuine understanding of agility, focusing on customer needs and product-focused outcomes.

Epilogue: The Search for Balance

Product management often mirrors broader organizational issues. When product and engineering teams seem ineffective, a deeper investigation usually reveals systemic issues. Advocating for clear role definitions, realistic expectations, customer research and strategic alignments helps move towards a more balanced future. However, continual evaluation and adaptation are necessary to foster a truly product-led organization.

For Context

For the past two years working as a Visiting CPO, I've immersed myself as a full team member within client teams, not just advising but actively participating in their transformation into product-led organizations. This hands-on method proves most effective, especially in crisis situations, enabling both managers and product managers to learn actively from real challenges and adapt strategies that are uniquely suited to their contexts.