How to 10x the Value of a Product Team

Product Management can be one of the most high-leverage roles on a software team. When done well, product managers can dramatically increase the value a team delivers. When done poorly, they become bottlenecks that slow everything down.

The nature of the job is very holistic to begin with and involves a very varied skillset-analyzing data, understanding psychology, communicating effectively, making trade-offs, and more.

This puts PMs at a great spot to contribute to the core concept we’ve been exploring: shortening feedback loops. In fact, as we’ll see shortly, PMs manage some of the most important feedback loops in an organization.

Let’s explore what makes product teams truly valuable and the common dysfunctions that prevent them from reaching their potential.

The Role of Product Management

Before diving into dysfunctions, let’s clarify what product management is really about.

Product management sits at the intersection of business, technology, and user experience. A good product manager:

Understands customer needs deeply
Translates those needs into product requirements
Works with engineering to build the right solutions
Measures outcomes and iterates
Balances competing priorities
Communicates effectively across the organization

The best product managers don’t just write tickets-they facilitate learning and decision-making.

Dysfunction #1: Not Talking to Customers

Being the voice of the customer is the textbook definition of what a PM does, yet many organizations underutilize what their product team does and turn them into something closer to a Business Analyst role who just writes tickets.

The Questions Every PM Should Answer

Who are our customers? How and when do they use the product? Why do they choose us over a competitor?

If a developer needs to know how to approach a new feature, a PM should have these answers. If they don’t, the team is building in the dark.

Why Customer Conversations Matter

What’s the best way for someone to become the voice of the customer?

Read about them? Read reviews? Ask ChatGPT? No…

Talk to them.

Ideally, a product-focused team should do as much customer development as they can:

Face-to-face interviews: Deep, qualitative understanding
Video calls: Convenient but still personal
Surveys: Quantitative data at scale
Listening in on support calls: Real problems in real-time
User testing sessions: Watch people use your product
Field visits: See how customers work in their environment

It’s the most reliable way to gain deeper intuition on patterns in the customer base.

The Comfort Trap

Many companies grow to a certain size and then become too comfortable with their Product-Market Fit, so they stop talking to their customers as much.

This is dangerous. Markets change, competitors emerge, customer needs evolve. Without regular customer contact, you’re flying blind.

How Often Should You Talk to Customers?

Ideally, live user conversations should happen weekly at the least. Remember: shorter feedback loops → more learning.

Some teams aim for: - Weekly: Customer interviews or user testing - Monthly: Larger surveys or field visits - Quarterly: Deep research projects

The key is consistency. Regular customer contact builds intuition that can’t be replaced by data alone.

The Interview Framework That Works

A simple framework that works: Start with “What were you trying to accomplish?” (not “What do you think of feature X?”). Then follow the story: “What happened next?” “What did you do then?” You’ll uncover real workflows, not wishful thinking.

The Jobs-to-be-Done Framework:

What job were you trying to get done? (The goal)
What happened? (The situation)
What did you do? (The actions)
What was the outcome? (The result)

This approach reveals what customers actually need, not what they say they want.

The Art of Asking Good Questions

Of course, there are hidden complexities-asking the right questions that don’t introduce too much bias and leading the interviewee down a certain path is a bit of an art in itself.

Common mistakes:

Leading questions: “Don’t you think feature X would be useful?”
Hypothetical questions: “Would you use feature X if we built it?”
Solution-focused questions: “What do you think of our new design?”

Better questions:

Behavioral questions: “Tell me about the last time you…”
Context questions: “What were you trying to accomplish?”
Problem questions: “What’s the hardest part about…?”

But the biggest mistake is not talking to customers at all.

Dysfunction #2: Not Caring About Competition

Another feedback loop to be monitored is what’s happening in the wider market a company is operating in.

The Complacency Problem

As companies grow, they see the revenue charts go up and often become complacent about their product.

Especially now with the pace of AI developments, there’s a lot of uncertainty about what tomorrow will bring.

Whole businesses can be made redundant just because OpenAI decided to implement their offering as a feature within ChatGPT. Or because a new competitor entered the market with a better solution.

Why Market Awareness Matters

A good product manager keeps an eye on market trends and can discern value from fad.

It pays off to:

Watch competitor reviews: What are customers saying about alternatives?
Monitor social media: What are people complaining about or praising?
Register for competitor services: Experience what customers experience
Attend industry events: Learn what’s coming next
Read industry reports: Understand broader trends

Understanding Your Real Competition

One of the most valuable insights, however, is that your main competitors may not be the ones you initially thought.

The Coca-Cola Example: Coca-Cola’s biggest competition isn’t Pepsi… it’s water.

The Software Examples:

A project management tool’s real competitor might be spreadsheets
A design tool’s competitor might be “good enough” free alternatives
A SaaS product’s competitor might be the status quo-when customers decide “we’ll just keep doing it manually”
A premium product’s competitor might be “good enough” free tools

So think carefully: WHO is yours?

The Competitive Analysis Framework

When analyzing competition, consider:

Direct competitors: Products that solve the same problem the same way
Indirect competitors: Products that solve the same problem differently
Substitutes: Products that solve a different problem but meet the same need
The status quo: Doing nothing or doing it manually

Understanding all four categories gives you a complete picture of your competitive landscape.

Learning from Competitors

Competitive analysis isn’t about copying-it’s about learning:

What are they doing well? → Can we learn from this?
What are they doing poorly? → Can we differentiate here?
What are customers complaining about? → Is this an opportunity?
What are they missing? → Can we fill this gap?

The goal is to understand the market, not to copy competitors.

Dysfunction #3: Not Acting on Inputs

To summarize what we talked about so far-we have data from customers and data from the wider market.

Processing as much of that data as possible is one of the highest leverage actions a PM can do. Sifting through all the signals-customers, internal stakeholders, and market dynamics-then ruthlessly prioritizing which opportunities to pursue.

The Signal-to-Noise Problem

PMs are bombarded with information:

Customer feedback (contradictory and overwhelming)
Stakeholder requests (all urgent, all important)
Market trends (some fads, some real)
Data and analytics (correlation vs. causation)
Team capacity (limited and variable)

The challenge is separating signal from noise.

The Prioritization Framework

This allows PMs to act whenever there’s an opportunity or a shift in status quo.

Effective prioritization frameworks:

RICE Scoring: - Reach: How many people will this affect? - Impact: How much will it impact each person? - Confidence: How confident are we in our estimates? - Effort: How much work will this take?

Value vs. Effort: - Plot opportunities on a 2x2 matrix - Focus on high-value, low-effort wins - Avoid low-value, high-effort traps

Jobs-to-be-Done Priority: - Which jobs are most important to customers? - Which jobs are most underserved? - Which jobs create the most value?

The Communication Challenge

Things are never static-technology breakthroughs, pandemics, and other black swan events do happen, so PMs need to facilitate this feedback loop and spread the word so that everyone in the business can course correct if something goes wrong.

Sometimes product managers are described as the mini-CEO of the product, but in reality, they shouldn’t be the ones calling the shots on solutions as they don’t specialize in any particular domain like marketing or writing code.

They need to have great communication skills to express clearly where the value is and get buy-in from other departments.

Influencing Without Authority

Instead, product managers collaborate by highlighting the most significant risks and opportunities to their team and make the case for a given set of priorities. Influencing without formal authority is key.

This requires:

Clear communication: Articulate the why, not just the what
Data-driven arguments: Use evidence to support decisions
Stakeholder management: Understand different perspectives
Consensus building: Get buy-in from key people
Trade-off transparency: Make decisions and trade-offs explicit

The Decision-Making Process

Good PMs facilitate decision-making, not make all decisions themselves:

Frame the problem: What are we trying to solve?
Gather input: What do customers, stakeholders, and the team think?
Analyze options: What are the possible approaches?
Make a recommendation: Based on data and analysis
Get alignment: Ensure key stakeholders agree
Communicate the decision: Explain the why to everyone

Part of the collaboration process is understanding the constraints of the current software system.

Only software engineers can truly assess how long something will take. Maybe there’s a simple feature that will bring 5% revenue uplift and can be built in an afternoon?

Common Pitfalls to Avoid

1. Becoming a Ticket Writer

Don’t let your PM become a glorified business analyst who just writes tickets. They should be doing customer research, market analysis, and strategic thinking.

2. Ignoring Qualitative Data

Quantitative data tells you what’s happening; qualitative data tells you why. You need both.

3. Chasing Every Feature Request

Not every customer request is a good idea. PMs need to say no more often than they say yes.

4. Building in Isolation

PMs shouldn’t work in isolation. They need to collaborate closely with engineering, design, and other stakeholders.

5. Focusing on Outputs Instead of Outcomes

Shipping features isn’t the goal-delivering value is. Measure outcomes, not just outputs.

How to Improve Your Product Team

1. Increase Customer Contact

Set a goal: X customer conversations per week. Make it a team metric, not just a PM metric.

2. Establish Market Monitoring

Create a regular cadence for competitive analysis and market research. Share findings with the team.

3. Improve Prioritization

Adopt a clear prioritization framework. Make trade-offs explicit and transparent.

4. Strengthen Communication

Invest in communication skills. Help PMs learn to influence without authority.

5. Measure Outcomes

Focus on outcome metrics, not just feature delivery. Are customers getting value?

Conclusion

Product Management is one of the highest-leverage roles in software development. When PMs are doing their job well, they:

Shorten feedback loops with customers
Keep the team aware of market dynamics
Prioritize effectively based on data
Facilitate better decision-making
Enable the team to deliver more value

The three dysfunctions we’ve covered-not talking to customers, not caring about competition, and not acting on inputs-are all symptoms of the same problem: PMs not doing the high-leverage work they should be doing.

If you suspect the bottleneck isn’t “engineering speed” but product feedback loops (customer signal → prioritization → execution), it’s time to invest in your product team.

The best product teams aren’t the ones that ship the most features-they’re the ones that ship the right features, at the right time, for the right customers.

And that requires regular customer contact, market awareness, and effective prioritization. These aren’t nice-to-haves-they’re the core of what makes product teams valuable.

If you want to improve your product team’s effectiveness, start with these three areas. You’ll be amazed at how much more value your team can deliver when PMs are doing the right work.

If you want a fast, objective view of what’s slowing delivery down in your organization, you can do my 2-minute Delivery Flow Assessment to get a personalized report of how your team operates and suggestions on how to improve.

Or if you’d like to a more personalized approach and 1-to-1 time with me let’s have a conversation - Book a Call here

It’s a more comprehensive analysis where we’ll map your value streams, identify bottlenecks, and outline how we can work together to improve your delivery system.