Experienced product leaders avoid relying on muscle memory or applying a standard playbook. Each company, product space, and problem is unique. The most effective approach is to first understand the specific context and then select or create the right tools and frameworks for that unique situation.

While industry experience provides context, true 'product sense'—the intuition for what might go wrong or what questions to ask—is primarily developed through strong product management discipline. It’s about knowing how to serve a user, a skill that is transferable across industries.

Instead of viewing a lack of industry experience as a weakness, frame it as a strength. An unbiased point of view is valuable for challenging ingrained assumptions and seeing solutions insiders miss, especially regarding team dynamics and stakeholder management.

Less mature companies over-index on industry experience, believing it shortcuts customer discovery. More mature organizations prioritize strong product discipline, knowing a skilled PM can learn any industry but a subject matter expert often struggles to learn the product craft.

Deep industry knowledge provides a clear "North Star" for product requirements, especially in regulated fields. However, it can also create biases leading to stale design patterns. The antidote is a team culture where the best idea, regardless of source, always wins.

A good PM delivers a product on time. A great PM goes deeper, intimately understanding customer motivation and connecting every product specification directly to a reason a customer will sign a contract. They don't just answer questions; they question the premise.

Organizations often appoint leaders from operations, law, or marketing to run product. These leaders lack fundamental product management experience, leading to weak strategy. Unlike in sales, where failure is quickly visible in revenue metrics, the damage from poor product leadership only surfaces years later, allowing ineffective leaders to remain in place.

The defining trait of a great PM isn't knowing a specific domain like AI from the start, but their ability to learn new domains and technologies quickly. Companies that hire for this "learning velocity" and curiosity will build stronger, more adaptable teams than those who narrowly filter for trendy keyword expertise.

Product managers are trained to conduct discovery to understand user needs, yet they frequently fail to apply this same curiosity and process internally. They don't discover what sales, marketing, and other partners need to be successful, leading to a disconnect where they only focus on shipping features rather than enabling the entire business.