33 Anti-Patterns That Transform Product Managers Into Backlog Managers
Understanding common traps to rock the product world
Hi everyone, how are you doing today?
Time for the freemium edition of Untrapping Product Teams. I took a topic that I’ve ranted a lot about because it drives me nuts. I call moving from Product Manager to Backlog Manager.
Most times, that happens because companies don’t know other ways of working, but we’re here to change the world. Bowing to the status quo isn’t for us; we’re the game-changers.
Let’s set expectations for this episode:
Free: You will get a high-level overview of common anti-patterns and understand their impact (5 minutes reading)
Premium: We will explore each anti-pattern and provide an alternative to overcome them (20 minutes reading)
Shall we rock it?
You may ask yourselves, “Why is David the best person to talk about such anti-patterns?” Honesty is the word.
Confessions from a Former Backlog Manager
When I started my product adventure, I didn’t know exactly what the job was about, so I followed others. I invested most of my time into:
Bridging communication between business and development
Writing user stories
Pushing teams to accelerate delivery
I was pretty good at doing the above.
After 18 months, I got promoted. Reason: I increased the team’s velocity by 30%. Result: we created more features nobody used, yet I ensured the feature factory ran at full speed.
My ultimate realization came when booking.com contacted me. They invited me for a product manager interview. Guess what happened? I nailed that, as you can imagine, but not. I realized I sucked at product management. I didn’t know half of their questions:
How do you measure the outcome?
How do you uncover problems worth solving?
How do you run product experiments?
How do you set goals?
Painfully, I learned that I wasn’t a Product Manager. I was a Backlog Manager. No worries if you’re one, too. I will help you understand it and give you a way out of this trap.
From Product Manager to Backlog Manager
33 Anti-Patterns will set you and product management apart.
Let me share dreadful product management anti-patterns with you.
To simplify, I categorized them:
Strategy → Confusion over guidance
Nobody knows what success looks like
Prioritization takes forever
The one shouting the loudest gets it all
Discovery → Output over outcome
Requirement engineering becomes a discovery
Validation solutions with the wrong audience are normal
Falling in love with solutions doesn’t take long
Stakeholder → Pleasing over satisfying
Obey your master
Business tells what; teams deliver on their wishes
Us versus them
Backlog Management → Bloated backlogs instead of lean ones
A big list with everything that nobody understands
The longer, the better
Promises over learning
Planning → Project management instead of product management
Time for capacity planning
Divide and conquer
Group of people instead of teams
Daily → Micromanaging instead of empowering
Monitoring output closely
Changing directions daily
Command & control
Refinement → Solutions over problems
Give me an estimate, and I will hold you accountable for that
Perfect solution understanding without knowing the problem
Review → Status report instead of collaboration
Presenting what was created without knowing the impact
The most boring meeting in the whole company
Sadly, all the above are more common than we imagine.
I’ve been playing this game for a while now. No matter where I’ve been, I observe the same circus of madness. Yet, I don’t want to leave you powerless, but I want to equip you to overcome this nonsense.
Let’s explore each anti-pattern and analyze what you can do today for a better tomorrow.
Strategy
