10 Deadly Sins of a Beginning Product Manager

This article was originally published on habr.com.

These «deadly sins» can serve as a self-audit checklist for both new and more experienced product managers alike.

Here are the mistakes — and how to fix them.

1. Believing in multitasking

Every product manager faces massive flows of information — endless initiatives and product ideas that no single person can possibly process in the time available. Stakeholders push their agendas, users complain, the calendar is packed with meetings, and the product backlog keeps growing day by day.

Instead of focusing on the tasks that truly matter for the product, a beginner scatters their time and energy across a wide range of goals. The core mistake is a failure to understand that attention is a limited resource — one that isn’t sufficient to address every issue at once. This resource gets consumed both when we’re actively working toward a goal and when we’re simply keeping a task alive in our severely limited working memory.

It’s worth remembering that «attention is a significantly constrained process. It gets depleted when additional tasks arise, and if those tasks are complex, it gets depleted quickly» [9]. Effective time management rests on two simple principles:

1. Start by writing down every unfinished task you have [1].
2. Every thought spinning around in your head burns «mental fuel» — a fitting term coined by Maxim Dorofeyev. «If we can develop habits that let us write things down instead of trying to remember them, we can live not only more effectively, but more calmly» [2].

And as the old Russian proverb goes: chase two hares and you’ll catch neither.

How to fix it:

1. Ruthlessly eliminate multitasking [11].
2. Accept the realities of the job: it’s normal for stakeholders to want everything at once; it’s normal to have a product backlog stretching a year or more ahead; it’s normal to focus on what matters and not spend your attention on things that don’t.
3. Build the habit of writing down all ideas and tasks — in text or visual form. The goal is to avoid losing information, stop overloading your working memory, and stop wasting your attention on things that could simply be recorded.
4. Focus on the product strategy if one exists; if it doesn’t (which happens), align on the key priorities for the quarter with your product lead. For requests that fall outside the product strategy, learn to say «no» — politely but firmly.
5. Keep in mind that effective work requires energy and a good state of mind — which depend directly on quality sleep, nutrition, physical activity, getting enough vitamins, and rest in all its forms.
6. Don’t overlook the obvious: if you take the time to explore time management tools and pick a few that work for you — the Pomodoro Technique, for instance, or simply making daily to-do lists — your productivity will improve significantly.

2. Fear of making decisions

A product manager is the driving force behind a product’s development, and qualities like experience, decisiveness, courage, and ambition largely determine how well a product performs in the market. Yet beginning PMs are often afraid to make even decisions that have virtually no direct impact on the product strategy.

Even mild indecisiveness slows down product development and affects quality. And if a product manager is afraid to make decisions in genuinely high-stakes situations — or keeps deferring or offloading responsibility — it will inevitably lead to the product’s failure, and ultimately damage their career [3].

Indecisiveness often hides behind the pretense of running «another experiment» or «validating another hypothesis.» Instead of fast iteration and getting the product in front of users, there’s an endless cycle of research masquerading as hypothesis testing.

Product management is a profession that requires certain qualities and knowledge, and these come with time. But one of the key ingredients of success is character — the ability to get things done, and the willingness to make mistakes early on as a way to gain essential experience.

A good PM reflects honestly on their strengths and weaknesses, and works to address the latter rather than burying problems. If someone is afraid of public speaking or struggles to hold their ground in tough conversations, they need to confront that fear — through training, self-work, or even seeing a therapist.

It’s important to remember that experience comes through trial and error. After a decision doesn’t work out, you’ll have to step up and make another important choice. And if that one doesn’t pan out either, that’s okay — knowledge is accumulating, quantity is turning into quality, and professional skill is deepening.

How to fix it:

1. Keep the outcomes you’re working toward — and the core business goal — constantly in mind. I’ve seen it many times, and fallen into the trap myself: in the middle of creative problem-solving, the original goal gets lost, and the «brilliant» solution found turns out to be one that doesn’t actually get you there.
2. Different decisions carry different levels of consequence. Often «we can fix a mistake in just a few hours. In other cases, the consequences could put the product or the entire business at risk» [4]. High-stakes decisions are best made in the morning, when your «mental fuel» or «psychic energy» [5] is at its fullest.

3. Making decisions alone

The opposite extreme is making important product decisions unilaterally, without consulting colleagues or leadership. I’ve seen this play out more than once: a product manager makes a call without looping in stakeholders, and only after release do the flaws surface — flaws that then have to be patched up in a rush.

How to fix it:

1. Don’t be embarrassed to talk through problems and solutions with colleagues. Set aside the professional pride. Good advice can only help you, and there’s nothing wrong with going to people who have experience in the area and have been through similar situations before. These people aren’t just managers — often they’re the ones in operational roles who have more hands-on experience with these issues than your boss does [6]. Beyond that, when decisions are made in close collaboration with the team, and disagreements lead to testing and discussion rather than conflict, the product manager shows the team that their input matters — which makes for a much healthier working environment [4].
2. Keep in mind that help is good in moderation. Don’t offload your decision-making responsibility onto colleagues or delegate your own authority to others. «Unnecessary help is harmful — that is, if I ask someone for help to deal with circumstances I should be handling myself, I do serious damage to my belief in my own capabilities» [3]. This is worth reflecting on: how do you strike the balance between accepting help and remaining independent in your work?

4. Failing to give 200%

A beginning product manager needs to stay curious, absorb everything new with enthusiasm, and work hard at developing not just product-specific skills, but general management skills as well.

That said, it’s important to recognize that even the best training courses are no guarantee of success. Knowledge gained through coursework can actually become a trap for early-career professionals — and product managers in particular — because what’s taught often has little to do with the reality of day-to-day work.

I’ve encountered many people who were trained in «product romanticism» on PM courses, but who weren’t prepared at all for the actual job. And in contrast, those who stand out are the ones who figured things out on their own and show up to work on their products with genuine enthusiasm and a fire in their eyes.

So it’s worth asking yourself: «Is this actually the work I want to be doing right now — with 200% commitment?» If not, don’t waste your time. Go find what inspires you.

But if the answer is yes, then remember: «Your work must have three qualities: it should be something you have a natural aptitude for, something you’re deeply interested in, and something that gives you the opportunity to do excellent work» [7].

How to fix it:

1. Alexander Gorny — a prominent Russian internet executive — once described in an interview how working 80-hour weeks at Mail.Ru Group helped him build his career and learn to truly love what he does. He even recommended that every early-career professional try working at that pace for at least a year. There’s real truth to that. So:
2. Set yourself an ambitious, bold professional goal — one that motivates you to be relentless (first and foremost with yourself) on the path to achieving it. The goal can be anything: getting promoted, making your product a market leader, becoming a head of product. Working 80 hours a week without a goal is hard labor; with a goal, it’s just the grind of chasing a dream.
3. Understand that the company has more experienced people you can learn from. If that’s hard to accept, remember Confucius: «If you’re the smartest person in the room, you’re in the wrong room.»
4. See work tasks as opportunities to build volume and develop your product skills, step by step. Your workplace becomes a lab; every task is practice. Solving real problems is far more engaging and effective for professional growth than working through case studies. And don’t try to do everything at once — follow the principle that the road is conquered by walking it. Building up knowledge and skills gradually, bit by bit, is far more valuable and effective than trying something once, getting burned, and stopping.

5. Following rules without question

Good managers have little patience for bureaucracy and formalism. Many people write documentation because «it’s required and that’s how it’s done» — not because it helps them think through requirements more carefully. They follow «the rules» even when those rules slow down product development, instead of finding informal ways to get where they need to go.

In short: they’re afraid to break rules that were set by someone, somewhere, at some point — or they simply don’t notice opportunities to improve those rules. In doing so, they cut themselves off from discovering more effective approaches to solving problems. Paul Graham noted that one of the important qualities in great work is «informality. Informality means focusing on what matters, not what doesn’t.» [7]

How to fix it:

1. Develop critical thinking and mindfulness in your work. Question and challenge any idea rather than blindly trusting others’ opinions or established processes. Look for flaws in the logic of workflows and in the arguments of the people you work with. This requires being sharp, focused, and energized — physically and mentally. At the same time, learn to distinguish healthy analysis and critique from mere fault-finding.
2. Cultivate broad awareness. Don’t hesitate to observe colleagues, ask questions, and reflect on how others approach their work. If you notice someone making a mistake, there’s no need to call it out harshly — but discussing what seems off or unclear is genuinely valuable. Watching others helps you accumulate experience, but only if it comes from a place of goodwill rather than looking for flaws to exploit or score points.

6. Prioritizing form over substance

Beginning PMs and course students often ask for templates for the «perfect» presentation, product roadmap, customer journey map, or other artifact. But the tools and templates aren’t the point — the content is. A great presentation can be put together in a notebook; a roadmap can be sketched in pencil on a sheet of paper.

Writing coherent prose is harder than drawing a few boxes and connecting them with arrows. That’s exactly why you so often see «volumes of information» in the work of junior managers or course students — content that exists for the sake of quantity, doesn’t follow any logical structure, and ultimately says nothing.

How to fix it:

1. Try to use the simplest possible tools so you can focus on content rather than form. Don’t rely on visual packaging to solve a problem — it will only distract from the substance. Use a sheet of paper or a plain text document, without unnecessary elements or graphics.
2. Draw on principles from adjacent engineering disciplines — which tend to be more rigorous — in your day-to-day product work. For example, «Less is more» [10] from software development, or «KISS (Keep It Short and Simple)» — a principle that originated in U.S. Navy engineering culture and found a natural home in software development and UX design.

7. Not talking to users

I regularly encounter product managers who don’t independently study the users of the product they’re building. Some don’t use their own product and never talk to users at all — even when the company has dedicated UX researchers, or entire research teams, ready to help organize the process or offer guidance.

A few years ago I read an article called «From Managing Products To Managing Product Managers» [11] that significantly shaped my approach to working on new products. In it, the author gives a fantastic piece of advice for new PMs: «A new product manager should know the product’s users better than anyone else in the company within their first three months.»

Understanding users lets you become their advocate and make decisions grounded in the real problems and needs of the people your product actually serves. This matters especially for managers who’ve recently joined a team or product. Without it, a PM starts making decisions based on their own assumptions — or someone else’s — and that’s a path to failure.

How to fix it:

1. Connect with your UX research team if you have one. Learn firsthand what research methods they can help with — and they’ll likely be able to help with study design too.
2. Carve out a fixed time slot once a week for talking to users. Build that habit consistently: learn to segment your audience, gather the problems they’re running into, and develop a real understanding of their needs.

8. Not studying competitors

When building a new product, beginners often treat competitive research as unnecessary — as if studying what rivals have built and discovered is somehow beside the point. This is a serious mistake. To put it plainly, you need to know your competition by name, and be ready to compete for users in a healthy and informed way.

A product manager who isn’t keeping an eye on the competition — and there’s always competition — is taking a big risk. Users may simply choose a different product that serves their needs better.

I’m not advocating mindlessly copying what others have done. But looking at your own ideas in the context of what competitors are doing — both locally and internationally — is never a waste of time.

What surprises me most is when product managers delegate competitive analysis to the research team instead of doing it themselves. And it’s equally frustrating to see a PM ship a feature that’s worse than what competitors already offer — simply because they didn’t bother to check.

How to fix it:

1. Study the top 10 direct competitors in your space, ranked by market share.
2. Become a user not just of your own product, but of your competitors’ products — experience them firsthand.
3. Subscribe to competitors’ newsletters so you hear about promotions and new feature launches in real time.
4. When designing a new feature, look at how competitors have solved the same problem.

9. Thinking in constraints

I often see beginning managers trapped by constraints — only proposing ideas that fit within existing norms.

A manager who always thinks in constraints will, after two or three years, become an expert in excuses and will avoid taking on any task. A manager who thinks in terms of possibilities and paths to achieving goals will learn to create new products.

Boxed in by rules — and often by norms they invented themselves — a PM cuts off their own future. They stop growing, can’t advance in their career, and lose the ability to find joy in their work.

How to fix it:

1. Deliberately and consciously work to remove constraints. Look at a problem with fresh eyes and a clear mind. That’s when you start to see new solutions and non-obvious opportunities.
2. Be creative. Don’t be afraid to let your imagination run — but don’t get so carried away that you drift into pure fantasy. Remember that your goal is to shape and move a product forward, just in a non-obvious way.
3. Learn to surprise your target audience. Offer not just a quality product, but do it in a way that’s genuinely different from what competitors are doing.
4. Don’t be afraid of anything. Develop your critical thinking. Compare your own progress over time and benchmark against colleagues. Draw conclusions, take the best of what you see — and make it your own rather than simply copying it.

10. Thinking in tasks

Beginning product managers often operate in «execute the task» mode — taking whatever a stakeholder brings them and building it — rather than digging to find the root of the problem and either designing the most effective solution for it or formulating hypotheses worth exploring.

Resisting the urge to execute anything mindlessly is the foundation of product culture and product thinking.

How to fix it:

1. Don’t let yourself simply execute tasks that other people hand you. «If you ever manage to do great work, it will probably be your own project» [7].
2. Be independent. Analyze the goals you’re given, work toward solving them, and find your own paths to get there — even if those paths aren’t perfect at first.
3. Never rush into executing a task without thinking it through. Give yourself time to sit with it, and don’t let yourself be hurried when you know you haven’t fully understood what’s being asked.
4. Never propose unconsidered solutions — even when one is handed to you on a silver platter. Rely on yourself, and trust your own judgment.

Nobody walks into a profession and succeeds from day one. Experience, skill, knowledge, and judgment build gradually — through trial and error, mistakes that can be corrected when you’re willing to learn. The road is conquered by walking it.

Never despair, and always remember that nothing is impossible — because «the impossible just takes a little longer than the possible» (Fridtjof Nansen).

Notes

[1] David Allen. Getting Things Done: The Art of Stress-Free Productivity.

[2] Maxim Dorofeyev. Jedi Techniques: How to Tame Your Monkey Brain, Empty Your Inbox, and Preserve Your Mental Fuel. (Russian-language productivity book.)

[3] Various types of decision-making fears drawn from The Fear of Deciding by Italian psychotherapist Giorgio Nardone.

[4] Based on Marty Cagan’s article on product decision-making, «Coaching – Decisions,» published on the SVPG blog.

[5] Based on Arnold Modell’s article «The Concept of Psychic Energy,» published in the Journal of the American Psychoanalytic Association. Modell is believed to be among the first to formalize the term «psychic energy.»

[6] Based on the business novel Joy at Work (published in Russian as The Decision Maker) by Dennis Bakke — a wonderful short story about building a culture where every person in an organization makes decisions. I think of it as a book about product culture.

[7] Based on Paul Graham’s essay «How to Do Great Work,» which is worth reading for anyone early in their career, in any field.

[8] Quote from Theodor Fontane’s novel Der Stechlin.

[9] Based on Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel laureate Daniel Kahneman.

[10] Based on the chapter «The Rise of Worse is Better» from Lisp: Good News, Bad News, How to Win Big by Richard P. Gabriel.

[11] Refers to the article «From Managing Products To Managing Product Managers» by Chris Jones, co-author of Empowered: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products, published on the SVPG blog.

[12] Based on BrainChains by Theo Compernolle.