The 5Ds of product management

Every PM should have an angle - a specific area of depth that makes them genuinely useful. I think of these as the 5Ds:

• Design - Can shape user experience, run research, translate insights into interfaces
• Development - Understands technical constraints, can collaborate deeply with engineers, knows what's actually hard
• Delivery - Masters of getting things out the door, managing scope, unblocking teams
• Domain - Deep expertise in a specific vertical (fintech, health, logistics)
• Data - Can define metrics, run experiments, make decisions grounded in evidence

Most PMs claim to be good at all five. They're not. And that's fine.

You don't need a unicorn. You need someone whose strengths match what your team actually lacks. A technical team with strong engineers might need a PM heavy on Design or Domain. A team struggling to ship needs someone strong in Delivery. A team shipping fast but not learning needs Data.

The mistake is hiring for a generic "PM" and hoping they'll fill whatever gaps exist. Know your gaps first.