14. Write down why
A good PM is also like a hunting dog, with a keen sense of smell for what the company expects of them. If the company just wants more and more features, how do we convince PMs to move out of feature factory mode?
Context
Your team is building and shipping but your market position doesn't seem to be getting better. 'The business' is demanding specific features, but once they are delivered, nothing seems to happen. Customers don't seem to care about new things. You're hearing PMs make excuses, "We shipped it, but Sales didn't sell it," or "Marketing didn't do anything," or "All I can do is build it - the rest is out of my hands."
Most of what we build as PMs doesn't create any value.
This is because most of the time, in most companies, PMs get credit just for building stuff, regardless of whether it creates value. Many companies have a profit or cash source that is completely disconnected from what they're building today, and so they get away with this for years, until Private Equity buys out the ownership and starts creating value in that special PE way.
I believe that product management is about taking actions that improve the market position of your products. If you want to do this work with integrity, you shouldn't just be building stuff. You should be actively working to improve your market position.
But a good PM is also like a hunting dog, with a keen sense of smell for what the company expects of them. If the company wants features, your PMs have probably adapted to this.