🚩 Product Culture Red Flags 🚩
When all signs point to NO.
Last week I posted on LinkedIn about Product Culture red flags. I’ve got a great list going but I could use some more.
I dream of being able to hand this list to clients who are making decisions about taking a new role….
What'd we miss?
🚩 Product reporting to Engineering
🚩 Engineering reporting to product
🚩 brand design reporting into head of product design
🚩 product can only interface with engineering managers, not engineers
🚩 product can't speak to real customers
🚩 CS hiding ("being protective of") customers
🚩 no bug triaging process...everything is a fire drill
🚩 ‘Later Alligator’ syndrome - we can talk to users next quarter, identify metrics and set up analytics later. There’s always a later.
🚩 When an established backlog gets reprioritized in favor of the random idea the founder got last night at 4 am and we build their vision of features even if they’re not backed by data.
🚩 product/tech acts as a service for the org, not a strategic function
🚩 the product leader has no product experience1
🚩 Engineers are outsourced
🚩 building instrumentation is a fast follow
🚩 shipping something takes months
🚩 saying we are “agile” - bc if you have to say it, you’re not
🚩 when product can’t access core business information
Hi - I’m Jori and I’m a Product Coach. Here’s how to work with me ↩️
I work with Product Leaders and their teams to unlock their biggest career moments. If you’re looking for support - drop me a note, I’d love to connect. 🤝
I co-host Product Leadership Breakfast NYC, a monthly product breakfast series to bring together curated groups of PM leaders to connect and share learnings and insights over casual breakfast. If you live in NYC or find yourself passing through, join us! ☕
THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED TO ME, WORST FLAG I EVER IGNORED