My goal in the article is really to point out that if a company wants to get their money’s worth from a product manager, they have to make sure that all three components of the activity – finding and validating market problems, creating solutions, and taking the solutions to market – are supported, and that the PMs are effective at all of them.

Once, I had the situation where my product was one of several that the sales team could sell, and whether I liked it or not, I couldn’t force the sales team to sell my product. So of course they sold whatever was easiest for them to earn their commission cheque – namely the products they were more familiar with, even though they were lower margin. Selling those products resulted in lower but safer commission. Of course, this is just one example, I’m certain there a many counter-examples, but hopefully you appreciate my point.

So if the product manager has no direct control over how effectively the product is marketed and sold, I’d argue it’s not a reasonable assessment of their ability to create a successful product if they’re not in control of all aspects of taking that product to market. So in those situations the performance of the product is not necessarily a representative indicator of the performance of the product manager.

Rather, on the assumption that product managers doing the right things will stand a greater chance of successful products, I’d suggest assessing product managers on their ability and success with the activities that are within their direct control: being user-centric, evidence-led, adept at keeping track of both the detail and big picture, and alignment fo their product strategy with the broader organisational goals.