Biggest PM screw ups you've seen
Spill the beans, help the rest of us feel less bad
True story - Person with no prior PM or Product Org experience hired as Director for the flagship product line.
Two years since, she still hasn't figured out how to shape the products, how to groom or guide her PM reportees, how to do any sort of useful people management etc. A walking word salad who derails every meeting she's in.
Two layoffs later, she's still around while people above & below her were either fired or left the org. I have no idea how upper mgmt is unable to see the problem.
Didn’t launch a project for 6 mos, had lots of dependency on 3rd party, honestly didn’t know they were that bad. Sunken cost was too high to ditch it
And manager ended up doing too much of internal marketing
This happens a lot actually
Once a CEO hired a wrong "Product Leader" who didn't understand tech or customers. He was hired due to his investor connections. Tech and marketing were frustrated with the nonsense he was trying to build. The guy left after 6 months. Still doing leadership roles.
Feels like its more of a success story than a screwup.
Built too many things too fast and not focusing on usage