How to Apply JTBD for Product Managers: 4 Key Takeaways

❌👎 PRODUCT MANAGEMENT ISN’T FOR EVERYONE When I first heard “Product Management,” I thought it was simply about managing a product. Straightforward. Simple. Not totally right 👍 but not entirely wrong 😉 either. As I’ve begun learning more, I’ve realized: Product Management isn’t just a job, it’s a mindset. It’s about seeing problems everywhere and asking, “How can this be better?” Like Marty Cagan once said, “Great product managers don’t just manage products, they lead teams to solve real problems for real people.” If you’re the kind of person who can’t help but notice when things don’t work, and your mind immediately starts imagining how they could, that’s not complaining. That’s product thinking. It’s about being obsessed with the user experience, curious about why things work the way they do. And brave enough to question how they can work better. That’s how I knew it was for me. I’ve always been that person who couldn’t ignore inefficiencies, even on my end. The long queues that could’ve been managed better would spark a thread idea on how DApps (Decentralized Applications) could solve them. Or that product that solves a problem for a few but confuses the many, I’d want to fix that. That curiosity, that hunger to make things work better, is what Product Management thrives on. SO, Who SHOULD GO INTO PRODUCT MANAGEMENT? ✅ People who love solving problems ✅ Those who can balance empathy with execution ✅ Curious minds who don’t just complain, they ask why ✅ Communicators who can translate between users, designers, and engineers As Melissa Perri puts it, “The job of a product manager is not to build more features, but to uncover the real problems worth solving.” Product Management isn’t about coding. It’s not just about building products. It’s about building value, for both the business and the user. If you find yourself constantly thinking, “How can this be improved?”, you might already be halfway into the PM mindset. Every great PM starts as a learner, and I’m doing that with Google’s Coursera PM Path. I’m just at the beginning, but one thing’s for sure, this path already feels like home. If you’re also exploring Product Management or transitioning from another field, tag me, let’s learn together Do you think 💭 you would want to venture into Product Management? #ProductManagement #TechCareer #LearningInPublic #60DaysPMChallenge #UX #Leadership

Product management in real life is not textbook product management 🫠 When I first started out, I consumed everything I could. bootcamps, courses, frameworks, templates, you name it. They were very helpful and set the foundation for me no doubt. But nothing really prepares you for what happens when you get into the actual job. Real-world product management is messy, unpredictable, and full of trade-offs. It’s where your beautifully crafted roadmap collides with shifting priorities aka scope creep that never ends, limited resources, and the reality that your “perfect” user journey doesn’t always match how people really behave. And then there’s ambiguity 😓. That constant feeling of “we’re not entirely sure, but we’ll figure it out.” It doesn’t mean you lack direction, it means you’re navigating the unknown, making the best decisions with the information you have today, and iterating as you go. You quickly learn that: 📌 Frameworks guide you, but they don’t make decisions for you. 📌 Stakeholders don’t always align, your job is to bring clarity, not chaos. 📌 Discovery isn’t always linear. 📌 You’ll make tough calls with incomplete data (and sometimes, pure instinct). 📌 You’ll rely on Google ( sometimes daily 😅) and generative AI as your quiet teammate, helping you research, summarize, and rethink ideas faster. 📌 And communication? The never ending meetings? It’ll take up far more of your time than you ever expected! 😮💨 Over time, you realize it’s perfectly fine not to do “producting” by the book. Take what works, adapt what doesn’t, and create a process that fits you, your team, and your product’s reality. Because at its core, product management isn’t about sticking to convention trust me, it’s about finding clarity in chaos, structure in ambiguity, and direction when everything feels uncertain. The bootcamps and courses give you the foundation, but the real job teaches you flexibility, empathy, and judgment. So if you’re just starting out, give yourself grace. You’re not doing it wrong, you’re just doing it for real 👏🏽.

Module 1 – Introduction to Product Management I’ve started learning and revising the Product Management course by Cole Mercer & Evan Kimbrell on LinkedIn for Learning. I’m sharing my revision here so it helps me remember better — and maybe others learning PM too. Here’s what I learned from Module 1 👇 🔹 Who is a Product Manager (PM)? ⏩A PM sits between different teams in a company and acts as the main communication link. ⏩They talk to users, collect feedback, check metrics, and decide what should be built next. ⏩Basically, a PM is the organizer, prioritizer, and communicator — responsible for the product’s success. 🔹 What is a Product? ⏩A PM manages a product — it could be an entire app or even just one feature. ⏩For example, in Facebook: News Feed, Photos, and Messaging are all separate products with their own PMs. ⏩Some PMs work on mobile apps, some on ads, others on the website. 🔹 Types of PMs ⏩Internal PMs – Build tools for people inside the company (like password reset systems or CRMs). ⏩B2B PMs – Build products for other companies (like Salesforce or Oracle). ⏩B2C PMs – Build products for general consumers (like Instagram or Twitter). ⏩Internal PM and B2B PM roles are usually good starting points — smaller user base and lower risk. ⏩B2C PMs work on products with millions of users, lots of data, and multiple platforms. 🔹 Product Management vs Project Management ⏩Product Management = achieving a goal ⏩Project Management = completing a project ⏩A PM works with marketing, sales, design, engineering, and legal teams — acting as the communication hub for everyone. #productmanagement #projectmanagement #product #ux #tech #business

AI will replace Product Managers completely! Product Management has always been about orchestrating vision, strategy, and user-centric delivery. Recently, though, I have seen a new wave, business leaders moving into the product decision territory, mostly with AI in the passenger seat. The intent is usually cost control or speed, but the result is a growing disconnect from what makes products truly good and valuable. PMs are getting skipped, and their expertise and interpersonal skills aren't easily replaced by a dashboard, an AI output or an exec’s gut feel. When business takes over product direction, teams lose the context and nuance that PMs bring. Product Management becomes a checkbox, tech teams get blunt orders, and user empathy takes a backseat. The pre-product era returns: solutions get built to spec, then blamed for missing the mark as these don't resonate with the users as expected. With AI, it's even easier to fall into these echo chambers. AI-driven decisions look objective but actually can sideline the decision maker's judgment. Unfortunately I have seen this too often, the AI or the executive gut feel say to go left, tech builds left as a result, but the users actually wanted right. Usually in these cases, the results outcome will not take into account the model or the way the decision was made, the builders would be the ones held accountable for the results. Innovation slows, teams disengage, users satisfaction tanks and the stakeholders ownership on the results decreases. There’s a fix, but it takes work. PMs need to get loud about their wins and highlight feature launches, customer stories, real impact. Show the internal stakeholders and decision makers the humans behind the roadmap. Get stakeholders involved and show how Product Management isn't just a black box but a lever for growth. AI can be a tool within the process, not a threat, but only if PMs guide its use with transparency and user focus. In my opinion companies can transform by making their Product function visible, valued, and central. The risk is real if Product fades into the background, but the upside is huge for companies that treat PM as a strategic advantage. How are you reshaping your organization's product function with AI? Would love to hear how organizations are reshaping their responsibilities with the new tools that are out there. 

💡 What Is a Product, Really? 🧩 When I started learning Product Management, I thought, “product = something you can touch.” Nope. A product is anything that creates value — sometimes you can touch it, sometimes you just feel it. 💡 Example: A car isn’t just metal and wheels. It’s the smell of the new interior, the excitement of your first drive, and even the ad that made you want it. That’s the experience — and product managers design that experience from start to finish. Here’s what I learned today 👇 🎯 Products come in many flavors: 🛒 Consumer: things we use every day (cars, books, food) 💼 Business: sold to companies (software, printers) 🏭 Industrial: used by industries (equipment, tools) 🧹 Services: not physical — like cleaning or SaaS 🖥️ Internal: tools built for a company’s own team (HR systems, CRMs) ⚙️ How products get built: 📏 Waterfall — clear plan, minimal change (hardware, pharma) ⚡ Agile — fast, flexible, user-driven (software, startups) 🔀 Hybrid — combo of both, when life gets messy PMs use tools like the Stacey Matrix 🧭 to decide which framework fits best — like choosing between a recipe or free-styling in the kitchen. ✨ My Step 3 Takeaway Products aren’t just what we build — they’re the stories people live through them. We don’t just ship features. We shape experiences that stick long after the “Buy” button is clicked. 🎬 Like a movie: not just the film, but the trailer, popcorn, and post-credit scene. 💬 Your turn: What’s one product that made you feel something — not just because of what it did, but because of how it made your life better? 👇 Drop it in the comments.

Let's talk.. An Evolving View of Product Management: being a great SPM is less about a static list of skills and more about having lived the product's journey. As a student of software product management, I’ve learned about many key ideas like product-market fit, the product adoption lifecycle, user feedback, and metrics. The goal for all of us is to understand how to become good product managers at work. Since I already have some work experience, my view has changed over time. I now think less about just learning the concepts and more about how the full product journey works — from the first idea to the moment the product reaches users. > The Journey: From Idea to Market This journey is more than just theory. It starts with studying competitors and setting a clear product vision that matches the company’s goals. Then comes product discovery, which helps test and validate ideas. But even if discovery goes well, a product can still fail if the timing for product-market fit isn’t right. After that, the focus moves to building the product. When creating an MVP (Minimum Viable Product), the main goal is to make the “hero” feature — the main value of the product — very clear. Sometimes that one small feature ends up defining the entire product. > The Base: The PMF Pyramid This all connects to the product-market fit pyramid. We often focus on the top parts like features and design, but great products start from the bottom — by truly understanding the target market and people’s unmet needs. The best product ideas often come from seeing those needs first. > The Real Product Manager: Skills and Growth We often talk about what skills a product manager needs — being a good communicator, knowing how to negotiate, understanding the big picture, and connecting the team and customers. These skills matter, but being a great product manager is more than that. It’s about going through the whole product journey — doing discovery, making tough changes, and learning from mistakes. A true product manager knows that customer satisfaction is the most important result of all. The journey never really ends, because every product and every user story brings another chance to learn and improve. Yes, I’m excited to learn more about this and explore it further. Shirisha Salandri

The Biggest Lie in Product Management: "Just Talk to Your Users" We've all heard it. It's become the mantra of modern product management: "Talk to your users." It's in every framework, every course, every LinkedIn post about building great products. But here's the uncomfortable truth: most user conversations are theater, not discovery. I've watched countless PMs check the "user research" box by scheduling interviews, nodding through feedback sessions, and filling Notion pages with quotes—only to build exactly what they were already planning to build. The problem isn't that we're not talking to users. It's that we're having the wrong conversations. We're Asking Users to Be Fortune Tellers "Would you use this feature?" "How much would you pay for this?" "What do you think of this design?" These questions are comfortable. They're easy to ask. And they produce nearly worthless data. Users can't predict their future behavior any better than we can. They're terrible at valuing unreleased features. And their aesthetic opinions in a conference room don't reflect their actual usage patterns under stress at 2 AM. # What Actually Works The best product discoveries I've witnessed didn't come from asking users what they wanted. They came from: Watching what they actually do – Not what they say they do, but the workarounds they've built, the spreadsheets they maintain, the manual processes they've accepted as "just how things work." Understanding what they're hiring your product to do – People don't want a calendar app. They want to feel in control of their time. They don't want analytics. They want to look smart in Monday's meeting. Asking about the last time, not the next time – "Tell me about the last time you struggled with X" produces gold. "How would you use Y?" produces fool's gold. The Real Skill The hardest skill in product management isn't roadmapping or prioritization. It's resisting the temptation to be a waiter taking orders. Great PMs are translators. They translate observed behavior into product strategy. They translate emotional jobs into functional features. They translate what users say they want into what will actually change their behavior. So yes, talk to your users. But stop asking them to do your job for you. --- What's your most valuable user research technique that doesn't involve asking hypothetical questions? I'm genuinely curious what's worked in your product practice. #ProductManagement #UserResearch #ProductStrategy #ProductThinking

“Why”… It Matters – Making A Better Product Manager I ask “why”—mostly silently, tucked in the corners of my mind. On walks, in meetings, even mid-bite at dinner, my curiosity hums: Why this? Why now? What’s really going on? That quiet questioning sparks ideas and sometimes makes me feel like a detective in my own life. Curiosity isn’t just a quirk—it guides how I learn, think, and solve problems. Over time, it’s become my most valuable career skill. Real insight rarely comes from instructions. I quickly learned curiosity pushes me: volunteering for unfamiliar tasks, diving into data to find patterns, asking developers why a feature works one way or another. Each new task, each question I asked, revealed a deeper layer of understanding. For example, while building a marketing report, I noted something new; certain features of an ad format consistently outperformed—regardless of audience. A series of “why” questions followed and voila, a new hybrid ad design that boosted engagement from 0.05% to 1.2%—a win for advertisers, the company, and asking why. In product management, curiosity isn’t optional—it’s my secret weapon. Every feature, every user interaction, every data point is a chance to ask: “Why?” and “What if?” Curiosity helps me connect dots between disparate pieces of information, empathize with users’ needs, and spot patterns that turn into impactful product improvements. One well-placed question can inspire a redesign, improving retention, delight customers, and strengthen the product. Curiosity turns observation into opportunity, and opportunity into action. Curiosity isn’t just about gathering knowledge—it’s about humility. It’s acknowledging that I don’t have all the answers and recognizing that the smartest move is often to ask someone else what they see. Listening, observing, and synthesizing insights from all corners of a project, team, or industry is invaluable. I always strive to: ** Ask boldly, listen actively: The best insights rarely come from statements—they come from questions. ** Dive into the unfamiliar: Growth lives just beyond comfort zones. ** Mindfully apply: Curiosity only has value when it informs decisions and drives action. Industries shift, technology evolves, and user expectations change overnight. Curiosity keeps me agile. I’ve learned to see unexpected twists as chances to grow. Complexity becomes a puzzle I want to solve, not a roadblock. Embracing curiosity transforms uncertainty into opportunity. Curiosity has shaped the professional I am today: a lifelong learner, a problem solver, and a product manager who thrives in ambiguity. It turns challenges into opportunities, complexity into clarity, and ideas into solutions. In the end, curiosity isn’t just a skill—it’s a mindset. It keeps me growing, connected, and ready for whatever comes next. And honestly? I wouldn’t have it any other way. Wouldn’t you? I wonder…. #ProductManager #JobHunting

Why do tools for product managers suck? I've spent 15+ years being pitched "the next big product management tool." I usually try to dissuade founders from building them. No two product orgs are the same. Even projects within the same company won't follow the same process. Building a beautiful, opinionated app for product management is inherently flawed. You either die a hero or live to become a big ugly database. So why build Brief? Every product management tool has centered around how we get work done. That was the tractable problem for software. The why lived across a myriad of apps, all in their own walled gardens. It was on the PM to pull those data sources together and make sense of it. That's fundamentally the role: 1. Seek out information 2. Refine an idea 3. Execute the idea 4. Figure out if it worked and iterate Brief doesn't care about your workflow. We don't care about how. Brief is your thought partner of the why. The thing no one's ever built. Because while the how changes company to company, team to team, the whys are remarkably similar across organizations. I've learned this across 15+ years and 20+ consulting clients. There is a framework of decision-making for software companies that's nearly universal. But there was no way to apply it: too hard to gather the information, and who would actually read it all? AI resolves this. Brief pulls together that information, synthesizes it, generates decisions, and uses those decisions to keep agents on rails. Coding agents, remote engineers, even exec teams benefit from understanding the thought process of a very senior product leader. This challenge is only tractable today. And it avoids the trap of why tools for product managers suck. Brief isn't another PM tool. It's a strategic partner to the product team, the executive team, and the entire company.

This week was all about learning and taking steps towards exploring the different dynamics of Product Management. Coming back from the hiatus of 2.5 years, the product management scenario has quite changed and overwhelmed. So these sessions helping me and guiding me to endure the new dimensions of product thinking and what’s better than learning from real life examples. Product Fundamentals: In the first week I explored the Customer Value Proposition (CVP), the real reason people choose one product over another. Using examples like Spotify and Paytm, I realized that a strong CVP isn’t about what we say or offers, but what users genuinely feel it delivers. It’s important to analyze the user behavior to understand the product is creating real value felt like discovering its heartbeat. User Segmentation: This session changed the way I look at users entirely. I learned by segmenting users based on engagement and value, we can focus on the ones who truly drive impact and design experiences that keep them coming back. Creating personas built on motivation, context, and behavior helped turn data into empathy, the kind that actually leads to better product decisions. The Key Take Aways- RMF Analysis: Simple but powerful framework, which categorize the user based on Recency(R): How recently a user engaged Frequency (F): How often they engage Monetary (M): How much value they bring This framework can guide product teams to pinpoint retained, at-risk, and high-value users, enabling smarter strategies around engagement, reactivation, and growth. Difference between User Flow and User Journey: Through Tinder case study, we learned that a user journey captures the full experience user has with a product, from discovery to continued use. It includes their emotions, motivations, and touchpoints before, during, and after using the product. A user flow, on the other hand, zooms into the specific step by step diagram a user takes to complete a single task like checking out, signing up, or redeeming a reward. Product Manager collaborate closely with designers and engineers to map out user flows in detail. And thanks to my all fellow aspiring PMs/ PMs for their insights and guidance which help to keep each other motivated. Tanmay Kapoor, Aditya Ratnaparkhe, Shreya Singhai Sakshi Singh, Ashish Yadav , Harsh Sharma, Yamini Vanjari, Apoorva Phatak, Aditya Panchal, Tejaswini Malothu, Sweety Suman, Pallavi Dutta, Gaurav Sivappa, Shobhit Pawar, karmukilan DK, Kartik Bohra, Aditya Garg, Aisha Tasneem, Shreya Ranjan, Abhijeet Dhaka N DIVYA One Quick Question: What is one framework that completely changed the way you see product management? #ProductManagement #ProductThinking #ProductStrategy