You Might Be a Product Manager If…

It’s time for the 2009 edition of Product Beautiful’s semi-annual “You Might Be a Product Manager If…” list.   Please add your own in the comments below.

You might be a Product Manager if:

1. You’ve created a roadmap through 2015
2. You can’t remember working less than 70 hours a week
3. You’ve lost your hair (if you haven’t consider yourself warned!)
4. At your annual customer summit, you stay late to setup and test products for the next day while Sales runs up a historic bar tab
5. You used to be a programmer but were too extroverted
6. You used to be a salesperson but were too introverted
7. You use customer interview techniques with your spouse to discover the root cause of their problems so you can build a “solution” (”That’s interesting…tell me more!”<smack>)
8. You wake up at night worried about getting your product’s feature-set right or hitting your ship date
9. You find competitive and win-loss analysis fun (ugh, I can’t believe I just realized I find those things fun)
10. You walk through the store and look at products thinking “what problem does that solve?”
11. You do a SWOT analysis before making any major purchase
12. The last thing you do before you go to bed and the first thing you do when you wake up is to check your email
13. You’ve ever written “The System Shall…“
14. You never have less than five #1 priorities
15. You’ve sat behind the one-way mirror at a focus group
16. One or more of the following groups is pissed at you: Sales, Development, QA, Tech Support, Marketing, or Operations. Special bonus if you get all at once.
17. You enjoy writing requirements that constrain easy way out from the Programmer.
18. You’ve actually learned how to herd cats.
19. You own an iPhone.
20. You wonder how the iPhone product manager prioritized all the possible features.
21. You wonder how many engineering hours it took to create a new feature in your favorite web app.
22. You try to envision the next 3 design updates for any product you see.
23. You think in Use Cases.
24. You’re always looking for an alternative flow of events.
25. You can’t live without OmniGraffle or Visio.
26. You had to reset expectations with management, customers, engineering, and finance.
27. You had to produce a WW product forecast for sales since they are too busy to do it.
28. You enjoy watching “How It’s Made.“
29. You plan “features” for your children and have a “roadmap” for their skill growth
30. Your wedding included a powerpoint presentation.
31. Major life events require a MS Project file.
    
32. You get “phantom buzzing” in your pocket when you forget your Blackberry.
33. You’ve talked to more customers in the last month than all of your executives combined.
34. Your marketing person said “you’re technical…explain this to me like I was 10.” then, “…now like I was 3…”
35. You know what all of these are: MRD, PRD, BRD, Functional Spec, sprint, scrum, CAB, spiff.
36. Your favorite question is “why?”
37. Your favorite application is Excel.
38. You’ve built your own product P&L template in Excel to save time.
39. You’ve used your P&L template across multiple companies.
40. You know what the “analyst dance” is, and you’re definitely a PM if you’ve done it.
41. You know what your customer is going to say before they say it.
42. Your spouse knows who your 3 biggest competitors are by name.
43. You’ve flown on every major (and some minor) airline this year.
44. You’ve used Twitter, LinkedIn, or Facebook to connect with a customer.
45. You’ve dreamt about competitive kill sheets.
46. You’ve been to ProductCamp
47. You’re the one your CEO comes to when he/she really wants to know how things are going.
48. “They” remembered your revenue commitment but not your product’s funding.
49. Everyone thinks they do a part of your job.
50. You’ve ever had to explain to a founder or executive why customers don’t want their great new idea.
51. You’ve been asked for the revenue impact of deleting a single feature.
52. You’ve been held accountable for Development’s schedule slips.
53. You’ve been the person that everyone brings the hard questions to at the trade show booth.
54. Caffeine is one of your primary food groups.
55. You spend more time with your development counterpart than your spouse.
56. You write a blog about Product Management…gulp!
    

Special thanks to my twitter friends: @joshua_d, @imusicmash, @chriscummings01 for contributing to this list!  You can follow me on Twitter, too.  Happy New Year!

Tagged as: CEO, excel, executive, Facebook, LinkedIn, P&L, priority, Product Management, Product Marketing, ProductCamp, swot, Twitter, use case, visio