10 Signs You Might Need a Product Manager

In the fast-paced world of product development, it’s not always obvious when you need to bring in a Product Manager. Maybe you’re hitting your development milestones, but something still feels off. Your team is working hard, but the results aren’t matching the effort. If you’re questioning whether it’s time to add a Product Manager to your team, here are ten clear signs that might resonate with your current situation.

1. You are blowing through your runway/retained earnings faster than expected; your ROI of design & engineering effort = $0.
2. Your designers do not know why they are being asked to do a thing or how their task relates to any goal.
3. Your engineers have insufficient information to do great work and be their creative best. They have more questions than answers.
4. You find your key Product stakeholders are pissed, disappointed, demoralized, or depressed every time you meet.
5. Stakeholders have made requests for features or improvements but no one knows where enhancement requests are going, what’s happening with them, or if they will get done and when.
6. Executives are not happy with how long it takes to get anything and most work does not align with mental models.
7. Creating a strategic roadmap is a contentious affair, maybe impossible. Or you have a roadmap full of unrelated vanity projects that don’t move the company forward in mission ways.
8. Your roadmap is too-many swim lanes of features and not critical, strategic problems to solve in order to grow, scale, or tap into a Blue Ocean. Colleagues do not agree about what’s most important to do now, next, or at all.
9. Customers aren’t using what you have built and you don’t know why; there are pain points stacking up, no agreed-upon method to prioritize and address.
10. Your product team answers to a Lead that is not a product manager and has never had marketable experience building products or Product teams. No shame but PM’s fundamentally think differently; it’s the thinking about things differently that your team probably needs.

If three or more of these signs feel familiar, it’s time to have a serious conversation about bringing in experienced Product Management leadership. The cost of continuing without proper product management isn’t just financial – it’s the missed opportunities, team burnout, and market advantages you’re leaving on the table.

Ready to transform your product development process? Let’s talk. Our team can help you assess your specific situation and chart a path forward that aligns with your business goals. Drop us a line to get the conversation started.

If you’re looking for a team to help you discover the right thing to build and help you build it, get in touch.