The Most Dangerous Animals Of Product Management: Hippo & Zebra

Welcome to the safari of the product management office!

 

Product manager's or designer’s job can get really wild when it comes to dealing with CEOs, VPs, stakeholders, or colleagues from different departments. It occurs that these key players with ‘status’ tend to think their expertise is greater. Or they assume that you have extra time to change designs whenever they shift one's ground.

 

Although this safari can get really huge depending on the size of the company, let's highlight and analyze the most dangerous ones - Hippo and Zebra.

 

Hippo is the most important person, simply put, The Boss. But if we read the abbreviation in this wildlife, HiPPO is the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion. In many organizations, it’s the person who says the final word and everyone agrees. Hippos tend to stick to their opinion even when others have more knowledge in a particular field, not leaving room for any arguments or discussions.

 

Zebra is a seemingly nice and peaceful animal. In the product management safari though, it’s Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant person that often comes from Sales, Marketing or Finance. That’s a gut-driven character who often lacks evidence or knowledge, but likes to express his opinion in the way that he knows everything the best. Zebra’s motivation for such behavior is often the aim to make a sale.

 

After analyzing these two dangerous animals, now let’s relate real-life office situations and have some fun by looking at the illustrations below.

 

Educate them!

 

Struggles, struggles, struggles… Been there, done that? Admittedly, some characters are really complicated to work with.

 

It’s not that easy to understand these animals. Apparently, Hippos are often influenced by past success cases that resonate with their need for power and ultimate control, even though this always disrupts workflow and brings motivation down. Zebras have even less leverage, however, they still somehow manage to be heard, to annoy and to destruct one’s routines and processes.

 

Encountering animals like these is a reminder of how important it is to stick to your strategy, prioritize things, be an expert and own it. Try bringing these dangerous animals together on the ride of the research and product-making process, let them clearly know that in order to develop their ideas, you need solid proof or arguments signifying its success. They might like it, although that’s not carved in stone.

 

We wish you the very best of luck dealing with these animals, educating them to be less dangerous, and more reasonable!

 

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Artwork: Rimas Pocius

Safari scenarios: Attention Insight

More info: attentioninsight.com

As a product manager, you spend hours analyzing and putting all the dots together to find a solution “A” that fits the project best. Then you present it to Hippo. For some reason, he creates a solution “B” and, unsurprisingly, approves it. Well, certainly it’s because he’s the highest paid person…

How to make a designer cry? Just say: can you make the logo BIGGER. This happens on a regular basis, and Hippos are particularly known for this phrase. Making the logo bigger indicates how proud Hippo is of his company. Sadly, it may show customers that the company is more important than them. So, although your design decision is right, you do what Hippo wants, because he is the highest paid person.

When it comes to the decision-making process, the right decisions are normally made based on one’s gathered experience and knowledge, as well as assessing possible solutions. However, it’s not the case when Hippo thinks he knows everything the best and aims to get only the monetary benefits. So here it’s where he outweighs those with actual wisdom and expertise.

Sometimes you need to know or even guess what’s the right time to ask Hippo questions. Don’t even bother to do so, if you see him lying down, full or out of his natural state, otherwise, when he returns to his normal ‘Mr Important’ state, it’s more likely that he’s gonna change his opinion in like 30 minutes and you’ll get back where you started...

You gather a team of professionals who make decisions based on analysis, research, and experience. But hippo chooses another way than all the team does, because he believes that his decision is never wrong. Of course, that’s because it’s the highest paid person’s opinion!

Here we go, it’s Zebra showtime now! You’ve been creating x amount of logo versions genuinely thinking that it will be a sufficient number of options to just pick one. You go to Zebra to show it, and he just doesn’t feel it??? Well, you make 10 versions more, and possibly 10 more until he ‘feels’ it...

Your day is loaded with ticking off that to-do list. Everything works as you planned because you are organized and capable of prioritizing things. But here comes Zebra, who’s the opposite of you, and with his impromptu requests, makes you interrupt your workflow. Quite a common situation, isn’t it?

The finish line - the project is done! Well, that’s what you, designers, thought. Zebra isn’t feeling it again and requests changes that are just not right, especially at this time. Clearly, zero evidence as it comes from zero knowledge of how important CTA is...