What Separates Good PMMs from Bad

Recently, I had the privilege of talking to an incredibly sharp Product Manager at Coinbase.

We talked about the industry, how quickly AI is changing everything, and my favorite topic: what separates a good PMM from a bad one?

I was especially curious to ask him because he’s worked with so many PMMs. As a PM, he also has a unique perspective on how the PMM role functions in relation to his own.

His answer was surprisingly simple: there are two qualities.

QUALITY 1: ORGANIZATION

Great PMMs are extremely organized.

At any point, PMs should be able to look at their documents and clearly understand the timeline, schedule, inputs, outputs, and what’s happening when.

On the flip side, the negative experiences this PM had with PMMs all shared one thing in common: disorganization.

When a PMM is disorganized, it makes a PM’s life significantly more frustrating, confusing, and difficult. It slows things down, creates ambiguity, and makes collaboration harder than it needs to be.

Being organized as a PMM is not a feature — it’s the product.

QUALITY 2: TECHNICAL EXPERTISE

The best PMMs this PM worked with shared another similarity: they had a deep technical understanding of the products they were helping market and position.

Even though PMM is not traditionally a technical role, understanding how the product actually works is incredibly important.

This PM explained that on past projects, working with PMMs who lacked technical context — how the product worked, where it fit into the roadmap, or why certain decisions mattered — created friction and made it harder to move fast, especially when going to market.

This conversation stuck with me.

I’m grateful I got to spend time learning from someone who’s worked closely with many PMMs and has a strong point of view on what separates the good from the great.

Written by Josh Popkin. Published May 26, 2026.