4 Common Mistakes that junior Product Managers (including myself) make

1. Not Saying No Enough

This isn't just saying no to meetings; it is saying no to stakeholders' requests, timelines, or customer feature requests. This can be hard, especially if you want to please everyone but its critical in order to prioritize the product vision and strategy.

2. Starting with solutions instead of problems

Another common mistake is to become too feature-focused. For example, wanting to incorporate AI into the product and directly focusing on getting buy-in without clearly defining the problem and why AI would solve it.

3. Relying Solely on Data

Data is essential for making decisions but is not the only factor. Junior PMs must move from data-driven to data-informed decisions, which factor in market trends, business objectives, intuition, and context.

4. Choosing complex solutions over simpler ones

It may be tempting to create complex solutions to problems so that you can incorporate a specific technology. This can result in longer development time and increased costs. Keep it simple and lean.