If you don't have a category for a kind of thing it is sometimes difficult to recognize it. For instance, I read a diary that introduced me to the category of a Mary Sue. My friends and I were bothered by that Mary Sue, Wesley Crusher, but couldn't say why. I will introduce you to the Bad PM and if you find the category useful then please apply it :-). Those of you in high tech can skip a possibly pedantic explanation and elaborate in comments on this character.
In high tech the PM is the person that specifies the software or device. He does this by ranking ideas contributed by customers and employees (including himself) and working with engineering to understand what is possible. But humans fail at certain functions in predictable ways:
- The bad PM has a million small ideas he is pushing but never takes a stand on the overall direction of the product or any large feature.
- The bad PM wants customer direction even when the customer wants the product to guide them and so they try to dance without anyone leading.
- The bad PM is "rooted" in the current product direction even if that direction is failing.
First let me clarify that the bad PM is not at all timid about spending money. Those million small ideas are very, very expensive. He's just very timid about taking a stand on a large feature or direction. The bad PM keeps all the developers very busy but not necessarily on anything that will sell the product.
Second a product cannot become number one on simple customer feed back. The customer is providing the same feed back to all the competition so unless you out spend or otherwise have some advantage over your competition listening to the customer alone will not put you over the top. If your product is a search engine the requirements are clear - accurate results returned quickly. But for many products there are different directions that can be pursued. Say if you are building a chip and you can make it faster, consume less power, or less hot, the bad PM will be very clear - make it a little faster, consume a little less power and get a little less hot.
Third the idea of "rooted". There is a psychological experiment where a number is spun on a wheel in front of a participant and then a question like, "What is the number of countries with a GDP of over 10 billion?" is asked. If the number spun on the wheel was 10 the participant will likely respond with a number near 10 and if the number spun was 50 then near 50. The participant logically knows that the number wheel does not help him answer the question but there is a basic human flaw that causes him to incorporate its result in his guess. So even if the bad PM has a very clear mandate to change the product he might accidentally let the current direction and state of the product influence his decisions. If the chip power consumption is 95 watts the bad PM will say shoot for 80 watts even though 65 is required to make the sale.
Now the bad PM is not at all a bad person. He is under a lot of pressure because he does not have any kind of dictatorial power. The CTO, VP of engineering, VP of sales, etc. can all influence the product and the PM might think the CEO will be more likely to fire him for taking a stand then for not. So the PM might make controlling the product with small, conservative features his goal instead of the product's success. But of course there is nothing conservative about failing to take the steps necessary to get the sales to survive.
You can read more about good versus bad product managers here.