How To Manage Product Noise

There is a lot of noise around a product. Customers generate noise. The product team itself makes noise. Others in the company can inject noise. Competitors can cause noise. Investors and alike can also be noise generators.

Noise is created around a product because it is easy for people to have an opinion about what it should do, and how it should do it. Because of this, product managers have the responsibility to serve as noise controllers and filters.

Do you know why great product managers are so rare and so valuable? Oh, and why they are exhausted at the end of every day? A great product manager is serving the same role as a filter in a furnace, a vacuum cleaner, and a dryer. Yep, you read that right. And it’s true. Product managers are the filters for their products. Just like how a furnace, vacuum, or dryer won’t perform at its best if it’s clogged up, neither can a product or product team.

Filtering, assessing, and controlling noise around a product isn’t easy. In fact, it is incredibly difficult. The customer is always right, right? What sales is requesting the product to do has to lead to more revenue since sales is asking for it, right? Company leadership who wants to raise a product’s price to have higher margins and better recurring revenue aren’t wrong in wanting to do it, right? A competitor that is spouting things about their…