Going through “Product Management in Practice” by O’Reilly publishing, written by Matt LeMay, I found this amazing classification of bad types of product management. Some of us been in one of those roles at least once, so I’ll simply quote those types.
The Jargon Jokey
The Jargon Jockey wants you to know that the approach you’re describing might make sense if you were working in a hybrid Scrumban methodology but is simply unacceptable to a certified PSM III Scrum Master. (If you had to look any of that up, the Jargon Jockey is shocked by your incompetence—how did you even get this job?) The Jargon Jockey defines words you haven’t heard with other words you haven’t heard and seems to use those words more and more when there’s a high-stakes disagreement playing out.
The Steve Jobs Acolyte
The Steve Jobs Acolyte Thinks Differently™. The Steve Jobs Acolyte likes to lean back in chairs and ask big, provocative questions. The Steve Jobs Acolyte would like to remind you that people didn’t know that they wanted the iPhone either. The Steve Jobs Acolyte doesn’t want to build a faster horse. The Steve Jobs Acolyte wouldn’t say that your users are stupid—at least, not exactly—but they are definitely not visionaries like the Steve Jobs Acolyte.
The Hero Product Manager
Have no fear, the Hero Product Manager is here with an amazing idea that will save the whole company. The Hero Product Manager is not particularly interested in hearing why this idea might not work, or that it’s already been discussed and explored a million times. Did you hear about what the Hero Product Manager did at their last company? They pretty much built the whole thing single-handedly, or at least the good parts. And yet, the people at this company just never seem to give the Hero Product Manager the resources or support they need to deliver on all those amazing promises.
The Overachiever
The Overachiever gets s*** done. Did you know that the Overachiever’s team shipped fifty features last year? And did you hear about the time that the Overachiever led their team through three consecutive all-nighters to keep a major product release on schedule? The Overachiever is revered by company leadership as a go-getter who can deliver lots of stuff, but it’s not entirely clear what that stuff actually achieved for the business or its users. And you can’t help but notice that the folks on the Overachiever’s team seem pretty stressed out…
The Product Martyr
Fine! The Product Martyr will do it. If the product didn’t launch on time or didn’t meet its goals, the Product Martyr takes complete and unequivocal responsibility for screwing everything up (again). The Product Martyr says it’s no big deal that they pick up coffee for the whole team every morning, but the way they place the Starbucks tray down on their desk seems just a liiiiiiiiittle more emphatic than it needs to be. The Product Martyr says repeatedly that they’ve put this job ahead of everything else in their life, and yet they seem outraged and overburdened every time you come to them with a new question or concern.