Product Management — Saying ‘No’ to Frankenstein Octopus Products

Great Product Managers Don’t Hide in the Rubble Left By Too Many Yesses

Sales is getting people to trust and like you so they’ll say ‘Yes!’. You want them to open the door so you can close the sale.

Product Management is the opposite. It’s getting people to trust and like you while you tell them ‘No’. You close the door to their favorite idea and they should still like you.

It’s not that PMs dislike saying yes. We are fully aware yes is the easy road. Yes is smooth and unchallenging.

Yes produces the illusion of progress. Yes delays any confrontation. People love hearing yes.

Great Product Managers don’t say yes easily because we understand the total cost of saying yes.

The blow of spreading ourselves too thin follows much later after the yes, when we’ve long forgotten that we spread ourselves too thin.

We all have seen the Frankenstein octopus products with unhappy customers that are spawned by soft and likeable PMs who are unable to say no.

Photo by cottonbro

Some of these agreeable yes saying PMs then take the opportunity to blame others and hide their own mistakes, and keep on saying yes.

Great PMs don’t hide in the rubble of too many yesses. They prevent the rubble altogether by saying no. They rather take the pain now than later.

The key thing is to do it in a way that people still like and trust you.

It’s even better when you tie in your yesses and no’s to the Product Vision, Strategy and Roadmap and make sure everyone understands and buys into them.

Do this well and you will rarely have to say no.

The next time someone asks for something, don’t say yes, try to understand where they’re coming from, and ask if you can mull it over.

A quick no always stings.

A slow, deliberate and thoughtful no hurts much less.

Bonus points if you’re good at asking the right questions with intent curiosity. You may not even need to say no, as the right questions may help them to arrive at the same conclusion without having to hear an explicit no.