Product manager’s skill in leading their teams to deliver solutions that delight users while providing business value depends on a laser-like focus on their user's needs.

This is crucial because many, particularly newer product people, or those coming to the role as subject matter experts (SMEs) from specific verticals like healthcare or financial services tend to believe they already know what's best for their users. Actually involving end-users throughout the product Discovery and Delivery process can make the difference between months lost and thousands of dollars wasted, and a successful client solution.

And there's no better place to start than direct client contact to better understanding user needs.

#1: It will force them to speak to their customers

Many product managers, particularly in larger legacy Enterprises, tend to take their direction from internal management and stakeholders.

But I’ve yet to see a product manager who hasn't had most, if not all their precious assumptions upended when an actual end user tries to use their product.

Product managers who skip this step or only do some brief user testing at the end to “validate” their assumptions risk investing a tremendous amount of precious design and engineering effort in solutions that users ultimately reject.

#2: It will make them pay attention to the data

The flip side of the qualitative user interview process is prioritizing awareness of client usage data.

I’ve seen situations where teams have tested creative that has tested ten to zero over a stakeholder-requested version of a page, and the manager still told the team to ignore the data and go with their choice of creative. Once the stakeholder version fell flat, the team had a much better opportunity selling their iterations backed up with customer usage metrics.

#3: It can take advantage of the entire cross-functional team's experience & expertise

Having the product manager meet with actual clients is one level, but bringing more of the team into Discovery can be absolutely transformational.

Involving UX and Engineering in the user interviewing process allows them to see, first-hand, the impact of their work, and make use of their past experience and expertise to suggest better alternatives to address the client’s pain points.

A product manager’s customer obsession represents the highest level of their craft

Some product managers mistake client-centricity as having users tell them exactly what they should build.

Nothing could be farther from the truth - they still need to do the work in Discovery with their team. But putting the client at the center of that process and as a regular touch point allows them to live the mantra:

Design with, not for.