🎯 Don’t Solve Every Problem You Hear!
As product managers, we’re constantly bombarded with feedback, requests, and problems from users, stakeholders, and team members. It’s tempting to want to solve every issue immediately — after all, we’re problem-solvers. But;
“If you don’t hear the same problem more than once, don’t jump into solving it right away.”
Jumping into every one-off issue without validation can lead to wasted time, scattered focus, and features that don’t move the needle.
🚦 Why This Mindset Matters
1️⃣ Focus on Patterns, Not Noise
A single complaint often represents an edge case or personal preference. On the other hand, repeated feedback across users signals a real pain point that deserves your attention.
2️⃣ Maximize Resource Impact
Development time is precious. Solving widespread problems ensures your team is tackling issues that impact the majority, not the minority.
3️⃣ Validate Before You Build
Unvalidated changes can lead to unnecessary scope creep. Relying on recurring feedback and supporting data ensures your efforts create a meaningful impact.
✅ How to Stay Focused and Deliver Value
🔍 Track Feedback: Implement a system to categorize and monitor user feedback. Look for trends that emerge over time.
📊 Pair Qualitative and Quantitative Data: Use analytics to support anecdotal feedback. If a complaint aligns with measurable patterns (like churn, drop-offs, or usage data), that’s a strong signal to prioritize.
🤔 Resist Reactivity: When a one-off problem arises, acknowledge it, but wait. Collect more data to validate its importance before making it part of your roadmap.
👥 Engage Users Thoughtfully: Ask follow-up questions to understand the full context of reported problems. Often, the underlying issue is deeper than the surface feedback.
💡 Final Thought
Our job isn’t to solve every problem — it’s to solve the right problems. By focusing on recurring issues, validating with data, and prioritizing ruthlessly, we can build products that delight users and drive meaningful business impact.
