Let’s face it, today when you see a car on the road you expect to see  a person sitting behind the wheel. 

However, if some very smart product  managers have their way, in the future you might be seeing driverless cars whizzing around.  This is all brand new stuff, but there have been a number of very large  investments being made in companies that make robotic delivery vehicles  that are driverless. 

Will their product managers be able to solve all  of the challenges that will be coming with this new technology?

I’d like to tell you that the calling to become a product manager is only received by those of us with the highest morals. 

However, I really  can’t say that. What this means is that in the world of product  managers, there are the good ones and the not so good ones.  I like to spend my time talking about what the goods ones are able to  accomplish. However, every so often the bad ones do something that is so  clearly bad that I feel compelled to talk about it. 

It turns out that  some of the bad ones work for Greenway Health and they have done some bad things.

If you’d like to sign up for a challenging product manager job, then  perhaps you’d like to look into what it would take to become the product manager for a mall.  

Back in the day, malls where where everyone in town would go to do  their shopping. They had movie theaters, food courts, and, of course,  plenty of parking. However, times have changed. Now people do more  shopping online and we don’t seem to be heading out to the mall nearly  as often as we used to. Clearly it is time for mall product managers to  update their product development definition. 

What’s a mall product  manager to do in order to keep their product alive?

So product manager, how do you measure how successful you are being? 

If you are like most of us, if you are always on the move and always have  things that you need to be doing you are probably feeling pretty good  about how things are going for both your product and your company.  However, in the world of food delivery services, their product managers  are running around like chickens with their heads cut off and yet they  are still not being profitable. Something is wrong with their product  development definition. 

What are they doing wrong?

The arrival of the Covid-19 virus has upended the lives of most of our customers. 

Many people have lost their jobs and just about everyone has  been forced to stay home. The result of all of this is that our  customers are starting to feel “cash poor” – they are looking for ways  to save money on everything that they buy. 

What this means for product  managers is that we need to make some changes to our product development  definition in order to appeal to our newly price conscious customers.

So product manager, what does your product look like? 

No, I mean when  your customer first has a chance to get their hands on their version of  your product, what does it look like? Does it show up in a nondescript  cardboard box? Is it in an unremarkable container? 

You do realize how  very important first impressions are, right?

Product managers for food products are facing a couple of different challenges right now. 

The first is that the cost of making food is  currently rising. This means that their products are becoming more  expensive even without them doing anything. The other problem that they  are facing is that they are facing tough competition – other companies are making food products that are similar to theirs. Just like product managers everywhere, food  product managers are under pressure to look at their product  development definition in order to find ways to boost their profits. 

They think that they may have found a way to make this happen.

Let’s face it, being a product manager for a movie theater chain was not an easy job before the Covid-19 virus showed up. 

Netflix and other  streaming services were cutting into people’s desire to go out and  purchase movie tickets. Now that the virus has arrived, movie theaters  have been closed and even more people have become comfortable sitting at  home watching TV instead of going to the movies. It looks like these  product managers have a real challenge in front of them. 

How are they going to change their product development definition in order to get customers to come back to the movies?

Once upon a time it used to be easy to be a restaurant product manager.  

Your #1 job was to find ways to get more people to come to your  restaurant to eat. You could offer discounts, have special events, and  even add unique things to your menu. However, then times changed.  That internet thing arrived and all of sudden your customers are all  walking around with their faces buried in their mobile phones and nobody  comes out to restaurants nearly as much as they used to. However, what  people do now is to order meals to go. This is good news for restaurant  product managers; however, it comes with a catch that is causing them to  rethink their product development definition. 

What apps are your customers using to order their food?

Restaurant product managers have a difficult job these days.  

It has always been a challenge to get people to come to your restaurant  and spend money. However, with the arrival of food delivery services  that will now take a restaurant’s food to anyone’s home, things have become even more complicated and it may be time for them to change their product development  definition. The challenge and expense of running a restaurant while at  the same time trying to make money from supporting a take-out operation  has become a very challenging thing for any product manager to do.  

That’s why some product managers have come up with a radical new way to  solve their problems.