#CorePrinciplesOfResponsiblePM: Responsible product management and product managers

To reflect on this topic, I asked myself some fundamental questions and tried to find answers because fundamentals are rare. What does it mean to be responsible? Cambridge Dictionary suggested the following: ‘having good judgment and the ability to act correctly and make decisions on your own.’

What is ethical? The dictionary says: ‘relating to beliefs about what is morally right and wrong.’

Who is a Product Manager (PM)? Again, from the Cambridge dictionary: ‘The product manager tells the team the goals for a new product and the plan for getting to those goals.’

So, who is a responsible and ethical PM?

By combining the above definitions, a responsible and ethical PM uses good judgment to do what is morally right while setting the goals for a new product or feature and acts correctly while planning to achieve those goals.

Simply put, a responsible and ethical PM makes choices that won’t haunt the PM or products’ users tomorrow for use of any unethical practice, knowingly or unknowingly.

Why should PMs care about responsibility?

Ignoring responsibility can lead to significant financial and reputational damage, and there are many examples to illustrate this from the digital products world:

• Facebook and the infamous Cambridge Analytica case, where Facebook was fined $5 billion by the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) of the US in 2019 for unauthorised data harvesting.
• Uber’s data breach in 2016, affected 57 million users and led to a settlement of $148 million with the US states.
• Policybazaar also experienced a data breach in 2022, where approximately 50 million user records that included sensitive information such as personal health and financial data were exposed.

Why does this matter to me? I’m about to join MakeMyTrip (MMT) as an Associate Product Management intern, and the travel industry has a huge responsibility—balancing growth with sustainability, privacy, and fair AI practices.

Some more questions that have troubled me

• Is it possible to convince shareholders that focusing on ethics is beneficial for business?
• If the answer to the above question is yes, then is it possible for any business or only for a few where trust and data privacy concerns are big?

Some essence of responsibility has been made mandatory by new age laws kicking in, like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) in Europe and the Digital Personal Data Protection (DPDP) Act in India. Such laws have pushed companies to rethink responsibility in their products and processes.

However, the compliance lens to look at responsibility is not enough; companies need to go overboard and embed an ethics and responsibility vision.

The good news is that it actually pays off for those companies that follow this path, and there are many examples that prove this:

• Apple’s privacy commitment: By prioritising user privacy, Apple has not only enhanced its brand reputation but also achieved significant financial success, with a market valuation surpassing $2 trillion.
• IBM’s AI ethics policy: IBM is a pioneer in this field, and its AI ethics board has led to the creation of AI systems that are fair and accountable. This led to increased business opportunities and partnerships.
• MakeMyTrip’s initiatives for responsible travel: MMT is actively promoting sustainable tourism, which resonates with the travellers and enhances profitability through various initiatives:
• Community-based tourism in Ladakh: In partnership with WWF India, MMT has supported the establishment of homestays and eco-cafés, promoting eco-friendly tourism and benefiting local communities.
• Sustainable shores programme: Focusing on preserving the pristine beaches of the Andamans through sustainable conservation efforts, including setting up public convenience facilities and promoting waste creation.

What can I do as an individual APM?

Ethics and responsibility are values that digital companies need to adopt throughout their organisation. And values are adopted when leadership at the top promotes them. So, what am I personally going to do about it? Do I, as an individual APM or PM, have the capacity to build a culture of ethical product management, or do I have to wait to be in a leadership position to bring about this change?

At a personal level, I can try advocating for data privacy and implementing ethical AI practices, at least at the team level or product level, during product council meets. I can use the tools I learnt during my MBA at SPJIMR to step into this role and commit to integrating these principles into whichever projects I am a part of. These steps, in my opinion, will be a good start, and I would love to hear from fellow PMs out there and incorporate their suggestions on how they go about embedding responsibility in their products.