I've led product teams at early stage and through growth into unicorn valuations. The unfortunate truth is that communication challenges are often not the result of any one single PM. A couple of larger "failure modes" drive bad communication in the broader system:
- Executive leadership pushing down poor decisions through Product - The "middle-man" problem.
- Product teams who are judged by output vs. outcomes - The "SHIP IT" problem
- Hiring Product Managers who got into the position to be "CEO of the product" - The egotistical asshole problem.
- Engineers who prioritize clocking-in/clocking-out over building a quality product - The "jaded but I get paid well" problem.
Being a PM is an incredibly challenging role, often made more difficult by the environment - If you find yourself in a position where you want to do good work, but are constrained by the above (or similar) issues, fix them. Influence up, take ownership of explaining why the processes aren't delivering the outcomes leadership wants, and find ways to prove a better way to do things. Motivate your team - Help them understand why the work matters, and chart a path for them to do something awesome together. Advocate for better, and help it happen. If your response to that advice is "ugh, yeah right - that'll never happen here", you're either right (and need to leave), or you're the problem PM that is accepting failure as a given.
If you want to be great, make sure everyone on the team can do their job well, and that the product team is set up to make a meaningful impact on your customers.
- Executive leadership pushing down poor decisions through Product - The "middle-man" problem.
- Product teams who are judged by output vs. outcomes - The "SHIP IT" problem
- Hiring Product Managers who got into the position to be "CEO of the product" - The egotistical asshole problem.
- Engineers who prioritize clocking-in/clocking-out over building a quality product - The "jaded but I get paid well" problem.
Being a PM is an incredibly challenging role, often made more difficult by the environment - If you find yourself in a position where you want to do good work, but are constrained by the above (or similar) issues, fix them. Influence up, take ownership of explaining why the processes aren't delivering the outcomes leadership wants, and find ways to prove a better way to do things. Motivate your team - Help them understand why the work matters, and chart a path for them to do something awesome together. Advocate for better, and help it happen. If your response to that advice is "ugh, yeah right - that'll never happen here", you're either right (and need to leave), or you're the problem PM that is accepting failure as a given.
If you want to be great, make sure everyone on the team can do their job well, and that the product team is set up to make a meaningful impact on your customers.