Here are completely flawed notions when it comes to making products for creatives. I don’t know where the culture began, but it has led to making of subpar products particularly in recent years in the audio & creative industries:
- Bigger teams means quicker work — it’s proven again & again that more people often means more bureaucracy and time spent in managing their time rather than getting to building ideas. You can instead make far thoughtful products when the focus is clear & precise. Got new funding? Think 100 times before hiring more people if you’re doing it just to have an expense report for your investors. Learn from the mistake of recent wannabe founders.
- Scaling features up means better products — by far the most misunderstood strategy across the board. Know why you’re building what you’re building. Your product doesn’t have to do everything or for everyone. It should instead do what it can, really well. Those other products that can do those other things, are NOT your competition. Find ways to complement them. Integrations & ecosystems don’t just have to be about your company, confined within your products; it can be about the industry at large.
- Product Managers should drive product strategy — BS of the century. People who know what they’re building, should. And that could be anyone in the team. Find them, give them control! Keep PMs to managing the process of building, the logistics. The onus of what has to be built, must be on those who know what they’re doing, and that CAN be a PM. Managers’ “transferable skill” is to manage, not to come up with ideas. The world suffers a lot already by the wrong people becoming in-charge of deciding the what.
- Use JTBD approach to make creative products — this does not work and it’s demeaning. The users are creatives for f sake! They’ll figure out how to make art even if you give them a piece of nail. Stop seeing artistic process as a factory work (not that factory work can’t be creative but you get the point), where users have a fixed set of systems as a ruleset to create something accurate. If you’re using this technique, I highly doubt you’ve been a creative yourself. Or maybe you studied about it in your NPDP or other PM course? Even if you’re following it just because your organisation expects you to, be the change the world needs. Besides, the pain point that the user told you in the user survey, are you sure THAT is the pain point? Are you able to read between the lines? Most textbook product management strategies are boundary-makers. Try ditching them.
- Building an Ecosystem means making more products — false, but more on this in another post.
Share this article with anyone who will benefit from these insights.
PS: I’m interested in get detailed replies and meaningful follow up conversations. You can reach out using the contact me form. And don’t forget to subscribe to my newsletter.
