(2) What distinguishes the Top 1% of Product Managers from the Top...

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Product Management

i.e. what distinguishes the best from the very good?

Follow-up: Who are some 1% product managers?
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The attributes most frequently mentioned include communication skills, vision, thinking big
and team leadership.

80 Answers
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Ian McAllister, Director at Amazon
218.7k Views Upvoted by Kartik Murthy, I was a Product Manager at Google and now I'm a
Product Manager at Quora. Jackie Bavaro, Co-Author of http://CrackingThePmInterview.com.
Product Manager at Asana. Previously at Google & Mi John Peltier, B2B SaaS Product
Management Leader
Answer featured in Inc and 1 more.
Ian is a Most Viewed Writer in Product Management.

The top 10% of product managers excel at a few of these things. The top 1% excel at most
or all of them:
Think big - A 1% PM's thinking won't be constrained by the resources available
to them today or today's market environment. They'll describe large disruptive
opportunities, and develop concrete plans for how to take advantage of them.
Communicate - A 1% PM can make a case that is impossible to refute or ignore.
They'll use data appropriately, when available, but they'll also tap into other
biases, beliefs, and triggers that can convince the powers that be to part with
headcount, money, or other resources and then get out of the way.
Simplify - A 1% PM knows how to get 80% of the value out of any feature or
project with 20% of the effort. They do so repeatedly, launching more and
achieving compounding effects for the product or business.
Prioritize - A 1% PM knows how to sequence projects. They balance quick wins
vs. platform investments appropriately. They balance offense and defense
projects appropriately. Offense projects are ones that grow the business. Defense
projects are ones that protect and remove drag on the business (operations,
reducing technical debt, fixing bugs, etc.).
Forecast and measure - A 1% PM is able to forecast the approximate benefit of
a project, and can do so efficiently by applying past experience and leveraging

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30-Dec-2015 PM 03:24