The Dangerous Animals of Product Management

                                                        What is a RHiNO? Often, people outside of the product team—especially those in sales and marketing—can be motivated by a high-value new opportunity such as the possibility of making a sale or landing 
 a particular customer. A RHiNO might say something like, “If we just had feature X, we’d be able to make this sale.” And while the RHiNO’s intentions are good, their approach can be myopic and disruptive. Why are RHiNOs dangerous? There are a few potential problems with giving in to a RHiNO’s requests. First, while they will often try to tell you that it’s simple, that’s rarely the case. Any new feature you build will take 
 on a life of its own. It can introduce complexities to your codebase, may require modifications to your product training, or present support issues. These unintende...

                                               What is a Seagull Manager? There’s no need to decode an acronym here—Seagull Managers are pretty much exactly what they sound like. They’re people who tend to be a little bit removed from the day-to-day work 
 on a project, so they occasionally swoop in, make a lot of noise, leave a big mess, then swoop out again, leaving the team to clean up after them.  Why are Seagull Managers dangerous? Like many other dangerous animals, Seagull Managers often have good intentions. When 
 they swoop in, they’re often trying to accelerate a process or “save the day” with their idea. 
 The problem is that they often lack context and nuance, and they take away a team’s agency and ability to find solutions on their own.  Seagull Managers in the wild You might see a senior VP of engineering, for example, who walks in one day and t...

                                          What is a ZEbRA? It might be easy to look at some of these Dangerous Animals and say, “That would never be me. I don’t have the authority to be a HiPPO and I’m too clued in to be a RHiNO.” And that may be true. But we can all be guilty of being ZEbRAs from time to time—yes, even the product managers and engineers among us. Sure, we theoretically understand the importance of having evidence to back up our opinions. But sometimes when we’re dealing in our areas of expertise, it can be tempting to skip over some of the validation process. Why are ZEbRAs dangerous? When ZEbRAs take control, you risk building products or making decisions that aren’t 
 validated (sound familiar?). You might luck out occasionally and still get things right. 
 But you could also lead the product in the wrong direction. Maybe you build things that your customers don’t...

   What is a HiPPO? A common conundrum for product managers is figuring out how to influence without authority. Product managers can’t hire or fire—they answer and report to stakeholders—and VPs or CEOs ultimately control the budget and business decisions. When these VPs, CEOs, or other high-performing individuals listen to the product manager’s perspective and engage in open dialogue about the direction of the product, this is the bestcase scenario. But sometimes, leaders can turn into HiPPOs. What does this mean? “HiPPOs are leaders who are so self-assured that they need neither others’ ideas nor data to affirm the correctness of their instinctual beliefs. Relying on their experience and smarts, they are quick to shoot down contradictory positions and dismissive of underlings’ input,” writes Chris DeRose in Forbes.  Why are HiPPOs dangerous? Since their jobs are on the line, product managers can find it hard to contradict HiPPOs. 
 This leads to those with more budget a...

    What is a WoLF?   The WoLF is not necessarily an individual, but a disruptive situation that requires product managers to drop everything and go into firefighting mode. In the world of software development, there’s always a negotiation between working on new features and addressing technical debt. Over-indexing on technical and security problems means you’re not focusing enough attention on delivering new features and value. But the opposite—neglecting these issues to focus solely on new features—can lead to several types of fires that require your immediate and complete attention, whether it’s the loss of data, security breaches, or an all-out product failure. Why are WoLFs dangerous? The WoLF will jump from one fire to the next, even when it comes at the expense of 
 value delivery. In this cycle of reactivity, where all resources are dedicated to firefighting, 
 you compromise productivity and a long-term, strategic approach to your product. 
 Plus, you’re making i...