Most PMs Aren't Real PMs
(And AI is making things worse than ever)
It was 2012 when I first started working as a product professional. Back then, they called me Product Owner, and I had no idea what that was. Eventually, the company moved away from Scrum, and renamed my position to Product Manager. Little did I know how bad of a PM I was.
And what does that have to do with reality today where PMs are “builders” and ship “stuff” faster than ever?
That’s what truly disturbs me.
More than a decade ago, I realized I wasn’t a PM, but a backlog manager.
Today, I’m sad. Most PMs are become supercharged backlog managers.
What’s success for you right now?
If you’re like the dozens of PMs I talk every month, it’s a variation of:
Shipping features faster because AI empowers you
Doing more with less because AI made delivery cheaper
Delivering on stakeholders’ wishes quicker because AI enables that
How much do you relate to that?
Going back to my story of becoming a product manager, I noticed the job wasn’t clear to anyone around me. Everyone had different expectations, no one really knew what success was. When my friends asked me, “David, what does it mean to be a PM?”
Oh! That’s a question I still search for the answer.
My best definition was, and still is:
As a PM, you talk to a lot of people, and you listen more than you talk. You understand what’s going on with business, market, and customers. The real magic happens when you manage to get people aligned and collaborate to do something customers care about in exchange for some business value.
Wordy, isn’t it?
Being a PM is complex. And I barely find two organisations having PMs working the same way. Guess what? That doesn’t matter. Your objective is to maximize value for customers and the business. How you do that is of less importance.
However.
Some traps are predictable and avoidable.
I’m having some unorthodox thoughts at the moment. I believe we’re moving backwards, not forward. Yes, you read that right. We’re not progressing, we’re regressing.
The Tragic Fate of Product Managers
What’s happening right now?
People are delusional. They have a false belief AI is a silver bullet that solves everything and anything. I call BS.
Most teams don’t know what they are fighting for. Even worse, different areas fight for different things. Collaboration becomes unbearable, and once again, the winner is the one shouting the loudest.
Strategy? Who cares?
You will find a default strategy. One size fits all: Doing more things faster.
The quicker the better. And if you’re not fast enough, we will find someone who uses AI better than you.
Nonsense.
And that’s precisely what I’m seeing right now.
What about you?
Why should PMs talk to customers? AI gives you all the answers.
Why should PMs apply continuous discovery? AI helps you build faster than ever.
Why should we prioritise? AI enables us to do everything.
The result: An uncontrollable mess.
Instead of being a value maximiser, unintentionally, you become a Backlog Manager.
What Does It Mean to Be a Backlog Manager?
You will skip 80% of the job. That’s the cost.
Yes, you will ship features.
Yes, teams will know what to ship. Maybe, you’re the one defining it.
Yes, stakeholders will see progress, but value? That’s a different question.
Now, I will tell the hard truth I learned over the years.
Most companies don’t want you to be a PM. They want you to be a backlog manager.
PMs are too annoying. You ask too many questions.
PMs say no to business too much. They don’t play ball.
Everyone wants you to be a backlog manager. And that sucks.
For most PMs, becoming a backlog manager is the most probable fate.
You will track outputs. Velocity matters more than anything
You will ask what business wants, and ignore what customers need.
You will understand your product inside out while being clueless about the market
You will wait for management direction because you don’t know where to go
You will manage stakeholders while failing to to satisfy everyone
I was a backlog manager for too long, and that sucked all my energy.
But I want to tell you one thing, even with all of this madness, you’ve got a way out.
It’s a journey that bulletproof PMs are ready to embrace.
Becoming the Product Manager
I don’t want to elude you.
After 17 years working with product teams, from Software Engineer to Product Advisor, I’m unaware of any shortcut to become a REAL PM.
Yet.
I can give you some insights on how to kick off this journey if you’re ready for it.
Most people won’t take such steps due to fear of repercussions, or endangering their careers, or something else. That’s fine. Everyone should decide they play game.
My honest view:
You don’t get where most people don’t get by doing what most people do.
Most people follow instead of leading.
Most people embrace the status quo as ultimate.
Most people create invisible walls for themselves.
Most people get stuck instead of growing.
If you don’t want to be most people, you’ve got to dare to be different.
Here are my tips for you to be a real PM.
1. Recognize Your Reality
First, you need to understand what’s really going on.
Most probably you already know what stinks. But before jumping to action, take a broader view.
Run this health check with your team and be brutally honest. Most PMs will never do that because it will hurt.
IMPACT
Do you measure features shipped, or impact created?
Do you let everything compete for attention, or protect one goal at a time?
Do you keep unused features alive, or remove what nobody uses?
Do you strive to avoid failures, or extract lessons from them?
Do you adjust your value proposition to whoever is in the room, or defend it with evidence?
COLLABORATION
Do you accept a prioritized list from above, or fight to shape priorities with your team?
Do you hand engineers a solution to build, or bring them into the problem to solve?
Do you make compromises to end conflicts, or push through conflict to find real solutions?
Do you run meetings to inform, or to decide?
Do you shield stakeholders from bad news, or confront reality together and agree on next steps?
DIFFERENTIATION
Do you execute the roadmap you were handed, or challenge it when evidence points elsewhere?
Do you assume your product stands out, or know exactly where competitors beat you?
Do you wait for complaints to surface problems, or go looking for what customers struggle with?
Do you build the full solution before testing, or run the smallest experiment that could prove you wrong?
Do you fill your day with tickets and meetings, or protect time to think about what matters most?
The more your answers are to the left, the more opportunities you have to transform your game.
Should you try changing everything at once? No. You need to understand how much change your organization is ready to take, that’s your task.
Most organisations can take two or three changes at once, not more.
2. Take Action Now
I recommend you select a few items and commit to one action immediately. And do it without asking for permission.
Whenever you ask if you can do something, the default answer is no. We humans hate change. Yet, when you show what you did, what you learned from it, and how that makes your business better, people will respect you.
Show, don’t tell.
Let me give you a few stories.
IMPACT
I once spent three months building a feature the sales team urged customers wanted. We shipped it and nobody really cared. The CPO was furious, and asked what went wrong. I was embarrassed because I had no answer. I had never clarified what “success” looked like before we started. Shame on me.
The next time a request landed in my roadmap, I wrote one sentence at the top of the item: “We will know this worked when X happens.” That single habit forced every conversation to shift from delivery to outcome. No process change. No approval needed. Just one sentence.
Start there. Before you commit to anything, define what success looks like and work towards it. And do the hard thing, show evidence continuously to business, and recommend killing the idea if that’s the best course.
COLLABORATION
A mid manager once pulled me aside after a demo and said the engineers had built the wrong thing. She was right. But the engineers had built exactly what I had specified. That was the problem.
The following weeks, instead of writing a detailed PRD, I booked a 45-minute session with engineers and designers. I described the problem. I showed them two customer interviews. Then I asked what should we do. The solution we came up with was better than anything I had written.
Start there. Replace PRD this week with a problem framing session. Bring the evidence. Ask the team what they see. You may opt to write the PRD, but do it as a result of your discussion, not as a pre-requisite
DIFFERENTIATION
A company I coached spent two years building a product they believed was unique. Then a competitor launched something almost identical. They had never seriously investigated what they were doing. They had assumed they were ahead.
Then I recommended them to started blocking one hour every two weeks to look at competitor products as a real user. Not to copy them. To understand where they were sharper and where they had a real opening. That hour consistently surfaced more strategic insight than any roadmap session (often know as waste sessions).
Start there. Sign up for one competitor’s product this week. Use it. Write down three things they do better than you. That is your differentiation gap, and it is now visible.
3. Rinse & Repeat
If anything, product is a journey.
You may be a backlog manager today. But you don’t have to remain there forever. It does require courage, resilience, and patience to get out. Once you get the ball rolling, you will have no limits.
My honest tip for you is to play the game with the cards you have, not the ones you wish you had. Continuously look at the cards at your hand, choose the best move you can do right now. This way, you will always act today for a better tomorrow.
A final question for you:
What’s a small thing you could do today for a better tomorrow?
You already know what to do, just go ahead and do it. Believe in yourself.
Are You Tired of AI Slop?
If you’re looking for something different, a place where the real things happen, not the fantasy world. I’m running my fourth 100XPM Mastermind. It’s not a place to elude you with AI tricks, it’s a place to equip you to stand out among the distracted ones.
This is a program to rewire how you think, get you ready to increase your visibility, gain influence, and ultimately get the rewards you deserve.
We will start the next one on the 27th of April, enrolment opens on the 20th.
Let’s keep de-bullshitizing the world together.
Yes, we can do that.
I believe in a brighter future for product teams, and I hope you do too.
Talk soon,
David
I totally understand what you mean. This is really a great post.
There are somany people I have seen who this becoming a PM is great but they start with problems and cannot mititgate and continue to do what was given but will never improvise.
Add into the chaos the tools that the team is forced to use!