Reducing Risk
The job of a Product Manager is to reduce risk.
That’s it. Not to build features. Not to manage the backlog. Not to chase the next shiny idea.
Every product, feature, or decision we make carries some amount of uncertainty. The more uncertainty there is, the higher the risk. The more we learn early, the less likely we are to fail later.
Reducing Risk
As Product Managers, we don’t eliminate risk — we learn faster than the risk can grow.
There are many types of risk in building products, but three are universal:
- The risk of building the wrong product.
- The risk of building the wrong feature.
- The risk of building the right product that nobody adopts.
Let’s talk about each.
1. The Risk of Building the Wrong Product
This is the biggest one.
You can have a great team, a clean roadmap, and perfect execution — but if you are solving the wrong problem, everything that follows is a waste.
This happens when PMs define the solution too early instead of understanding the problem deeply enough.
The costliest risk in product is believing you already know the problem.
Example: A B2B SaaS team builds an elaborate reporting suite because customers asked for “better dashboards.” What they actually needed was an easier way to export data to Excel and share insights. The job-to-be-done wasn’t “view data,” it was “manipulate and present data.”
When you build the wrong product, you fail before the first line of code ships.
The fix? Talk to users early & often Keep asking why until the problem becomes painfully clear.
2. The Risk of Building the Wrong Feature
Even if the product direction is right, features can still go wrong.
You might build something that looks right, tests right, and even demos well — but doesn’t move any real metric.
This is the execution trap.
Building features is easy. Building the right ones is discovery.
Example: An enterprise workflow tool adds a “bulk import” feature because users said they wanted it. They release it. It’s slow, confusing, and barely used. The problem wasn’t importing — it was the friction in cleaning and validating data before upload.
The wrong feature wastes time and dilutes focus. The fix? Prototype, simulate, and observe. Validate behavior (a core tenet of Continuous Discovery), not just feedback.
3. The Risk of Non-Adoption
Sometimes, you build the right thing — and it still fails.
Not because it’s bad, but because users never build the habit to use it.
Even a great product fails if nobody forms the habit to use it.
Example: A company builds a slick internal tool, but teams still go back to spreadsheets. Why? Because old workflows feel safer than new ones.
Adoption risk isn’t about usability. It’s about motivation and timing. You can’t brute-force adoption; you have to design for it.
Beyond the Big Three
Once you start reducing these core risks, others start showing up.
- Feasibility Risk — Can it be built, and is it worth building now?
- Business Viability Risk — Does it fit the company’s goals and constraints?
- Priority Risk — The risk of not focusing on the riskiest assumptions first.
Every roadmap is a risk map. Each decision says what you’re choosing to learn — and what you’re willing to gamble.
