Erik Theuer’s Post

Wanted to share one of the screening call questions, I was asked - Who does most of the work for a launching a Product - Product Owner vs Product Manager? My take was, it depends on the phase, the org, and the product maturity. After thinking through it, I beleive more importantly - It’s not about who does more, it’s about who does what best should be the right question. What do you think on this or have you encoutered any of such questions throughout your journey ?!?

I had a product deep dive quite recently. The switch over from just knowing the “what to build” to “why it needs to be build” literally turned on the light bulb in everyone’s head. I always feel very energised after having such sessions with the teams building them. The changes in excitement level make each minute worth it. The digital product immediately took a life of its own. The boring, “we have done it before” way of looking at things suddenly changed to “what are the things that are different”. Here are 3 key things to focus on when having product deep dives: 1. Focus on the problems it solves and the pain points it addresses rather than just the latest technology it uses. It helps everyone connect emotionally with the “why” rather just the “what”. 2. Explain the product vision and how the solution is supposed to be different from others. This sets the tone for the long-term direction. 3. Outline the priorities of the key elements and why they matter in the overall scheme of things. Everyone knows what things are non-negotiable and helps them make smarter, day to day tradeoffs. Focusing on these really changes the product alignment for the teams.

4 years in product have taught me many things but the biggest one is this: you’ll never have all the answers. Still, a few lessons have stayed constant no matter where I worked: 1. Start with the problem, not the feature. It’s easy to fall in love with ideas, but users don’t care about your roadmap; they care about their pain. Solve that. 2. Every user has a voice. Not all feedback is right, but it’s never useless. Learn to decode why someone feels something that’s where insights hide. 3. Data matters but so does instinct. The best PMs don’t just look at dashboards; they listen to behavior. Numbers explain what, not always why. 4. You’ll say ‘no’ more than you’ll say ‘yes’. The hardest part of product isn’t building it’s prioritizing. Learn to defend focus without sounding defensive. 5. No roadmap ever goes as planned. And that’s okay. Adaptability is the real superpower. What’s one product lesson you’ve learned that you didn’t expect when you started?

𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝐨𝐟 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐨 𝐰𝐢𝐭𝐡𝐨𝐮𝐭 𝐚𝐜𝐭𝐮𝐚𝐥𝐥𝐲 𝐬𝐚𝐲𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐍𝐨: Totally agree with Diego Granados, as a Product Manager, you’ll often find yourself turning down stakeholder requests. The tricky part is, even if you are turning down a particular stakeholder today, you might need to have their buy-in for some other requests tomorrow. So, don’t let the “No” come from you. Let it come from data, facts, and real-world evidence thus ensuring the stakeholder doesn't sense any personal bias in any action. That way it feels rational and not personal. Consequently your backlog and relationships stay clean. 💡

This just happened! Explained simply: Product owners juggling multiple products need clear boundaries. Focus on defining products, setting priorities, and limiting work-in-progress for meaningful outcomes. Dive deeper here: https://lnkd.in/grDmwTuF

Years ago, I was on a product team where the roadmap was basically a dumping ground for every customer feature request. If one client screamed loud enough, it went on our backlog. We thought saying “yes” to everything would make customers love us. Spoiler: it did the opposite. Within months, our product felt like a Frankenstein monster with dozens of disjointed features, many barely used. The team was stretched thin juggling conflicting demands. I’ll never forget when a new customer asked, “So what exactly is this product good at?” We’d lost our identity by trying to be everything for everyone. The chaos taught me the hard way: focus isn’t a luxury but survival. We regrouped and started pushing back (politely) on requests that didn’t fit our strategy. Instead, we dug deeper to understand underlying needs and offered solutions that made sense for all customers, not just one. Gradually, the product became coherent again. We even earned more respect from customers for being honest about what we wouldn’t build. Lesson: You can’t please everyone in product. How do you decide which customer requests to say “no” to?

We asked five Senior Product Managers for their thoughts on reducing time-to-market for new releases, and this is their advice >>> https://lnkd.in/eyMUA_5G

A few years ago, I joined a company where everything was already decided. The roadmap, the workflow, even the templates all set in stone. My job? Fill in the blanks and ship. At first, it sounded easy. Less thinking, more shipping. But as I worked, I realized something subtle but powerful: Insights got lost, priorities weren’t clear, and metrics didn’t reflect what users cared about. The team was talented, but boxed in by a system built for a different context. Later, at another company, my manager said something that changed everything: “If the structure doesn’t help you think better, change it.” And I did. I redesigned our discovery process, reworked the roadmap to show why behind every decision, and rebuilt our success metrics around user outcomes. The impact was huge: faster iterations, proactive engineering input, and clear visibility from leadership on business value. Here’s the lesson: structures aren’t neutral, they either amplify a PM’s thinking or suppress it. If you hire PMs for their judgment but lock them into rigid frameworks, you’ll get compliance, not innovation. But if you let them shape how the work gets done, you’ll get better decisions, and better products. P.S: I’m a Product manager who prioritizes Customer’s experience✨🫶🏻

Good product managers chase complaints. But great product managers chase surprises !! I used to ask my customer support - "What are customers complaining about?” A reasonable question, but complaints mostly confirmed what I already expected. Then i pivoted and started asking - • What surprised you this week? • What caught you off guard? • What made you go - wait, why would a user do that? This consistently unlocked deeper insight for me. Surprises expose the gap between how we think users behave and how they actually behave. And that gap is where product sense is sharpened. Dashboards measure the known. Surprises uncover the unknown unknowns. Every surprise forces a mental model update. Over time, those updates compound into intuition. The kind you can’t build from metrics alone. If you want stronger product instincts, hunt for surprises - not just complaints. What’s the last user behaviour that genuinely surprised you?

Some of the most admired product teams don’t get learning perfect, and that’s the point. Alongside the push for deadlines and delivery, they’ve built habits that keep outcomes and customer connection in the conversation That balance is what turns “continuous discovery” from an initiative into a way of working. We sat down with John Cutler at INDUSTRY last month to dig into what that looks like in practice. Catch the full episode of Product Momentum at the links below. 📺: https://lnkd.in/eNS9WA9J 🎧: https://lnkd.in/ePX23ANH