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The Product Management Cringe List

June 25th, 2009 | Product Management

Source: lasvegascitylife.comBeing Canadian, it goes without saying that the image is without political message.smiley


There are product management related terms that just make me cringe. Some I cringe for the negative context, some I cringe because I know what it really means.


Here they are in no particular order…


  • Voice of the customer
  • Customer
  • Business Requirements
  • I am an industry expert
  • Cost plus
  • We are Agile
  • Prioritize
  • P-Camp
  • Meetings
  • Development manages the bug fix list

Are there any phrases that just make you wince? I suspect this list will grow over time.smiley

Image Source: lasvegascitylife.com

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    • bobcorrigan
      The ultimate cringe: "Why do you need to go visit so-and-so? We already know what we're building next."
    • Ah yes, because nothing ever changes and vision doesn't extend past the next release.
    • J Smith
      But why do they make you cringe?

      Customers? Prioritize? Requirements? These aren't exactly jargon. Do you not use them?
    • I was wondering if someone would ask about some of them because you are right, some are just natural in our language. Specifically for the three you mentioned... Customers for some equal the list of clients who already paid and for some it also includes the potentials. More often than not it is the former (paid) so I cringe when I hear it. Prioritize follows the same lines, for most it means high/medium/low. I prefer rank which means 1, 2, 3, ... , n. It is useless to have two items ranked high, but 1 & have value. The term "requirements" I am OK with, but the term "business requirements" I do not. Business implies one and it is ambiguous whether it is your business or someone else's. If someone else's they are not requirements, they are requests. Generally I can tell the effectiveness of the product management group by how they label requirements.

      Thanks for asking J Smith!
    • - "So, when can we get that" (the earlier in the process, the bigger the cringe)

      - "That should be easy to build..." Why yes Mr. C-level... that WOULD be easy to build (voice in my head - assuming we ignore our roadmap, current projects and staff & budget constraints...)
    • I use easy-to-build all the time! Not sure where you are going with this one. :-)
    • Product marketing cringe:
      "We are the leading XXXXX company..."
      Inherently meaningless, since everyone claims to be the leader.

      Product management cringe:
      "We are a customer-driven company."
      What else would you be? Sometimes a sign of internal struggles over product decision-making.
    • Great ones... customer-driven generally means we are incapable of making decisions.
    • JasonBrett
      Or we are a SaaS company and don't need product managers....#didisaythatoutloud
    • Ian Rowlands
      "We want to be your partners"
    • We only target financial services, manufacturing and healthcare.
      We have no competition.
      Trade show.

      April
    • Saw someone use "We have no competition" on Dragon's Den (cbc.ca/dragonsden/) last night.
    • "We have no competition."

      Amen, sister.
    • Jim Holland
      The CRINGE FACTOR -

      - Sales does all our Win/Loss analysis
      - The CEO manages our vision and roadmap.
      - Buyers remorse
      - VCs
      - I had an idea...
    • Great ones! How this one "CEO is the product manager"?
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