I never knew what a product manager was until my fiancé and I had a discussion one day about my career and my passions. My fiancé is a business analyst for a large HCM capital corporation here in south Florida. She has worked in product for the last 4 years. I started my career in sales, but explored my entrepreneurial spirit with a few side projects and also starting a local business with family.
Once it was brought to my attention the responsibility of a PM, I was intrigued to learn more. I spent days and nights researching blogs and taking LinkedIn Learning courses to understand what it meant to be a PM.
There really isn’t any course, book, or blog that can tell you what your Product Management experience will be like. The top books written by some of the greatest to ever do Products are more of a fantasy land for a PM rather than what you may actually be signing up for. Don’t get me wrong, some company Product team structures are fantastic, but many are now. So allow me to explain what Product Management is and what it is not.
What is Product Management?
- Swiss Army knife in respect to your domain. A little about a lot vs. a lot about a little.
- You don’t need to be the expert on every single thing, but in your domain, you should know a little about a lot.
- A leader by influence and without authority
- Most likely, you are not managing any people in your Product Manager role. What you are though is a leader among your Product, Engineering, and Design team. Your job is to lead these strong collaborative departments and to influence other stakeholders in your company to work towards your Product Vision.
- Owner of the Product Roadmap
- There is a lot of influence that gets into the Product Roadmap. From internal stakeholder requests to customer requests, and C-Suite requests, the Product Roadmap is more than just a Gantt chart with dates to hit or a list of features to deliver. As a PM, you own the output, but this output should be striving to produce an outcome.
- Voice of the Customer
- You see this one a lot in books, courses, and any other material you come across because it is 100% spot on. Your #1 focus should be on delivering your customers or potential customers value. That value could be solving their current problems in your product, or delivering a brand-new feature to add value to your current product.
- Owner of KPIs
- Like any other role, you need to know how you will be measured. Your product needs to be measured for you to be measured. What gets measured, gets managed. What gets managed, can improve.
- Launch Artist—Owner of feature/product releases
- I call it a launch artist because releasing a big feature that requires a lot of stakeholder involvement or launching a brand-new product is truly an art. There is a framework to do it, and you own it. Your job is to bring everyone together to create the Product’s story.
- I call it a launch artist because releasing a big feature that requires a lot of stakeholder involvement or launching a brand-new product is truly an art. There is a framework to do it, and you own it. Your job is to bring everyone together to create the Product’s story.
What is NOT Product Management?
- CEO of the Product
- You will soon learn they this is not the case. You become the source of many asks. The goal here is to learn how to persuade your stakeholders when your answer is no or against what they’re saying.
- Project Manager
- Fight to deliver products and features with value and minimal issues, vs. delivering them when your stakeholders or business are asking for them. Project Managers work towards deadlines and budgets. Product Managers have to factor in deadline deliverables and budget of development costs, but not at the expense of poor release that could potentially create bigger issues.
- Code Expert
- Leave engineering up to engineering. Even if you are a technical product manager, your concern should be solving the problems and creating value for your end users. Your job as a technical PM comes into play with engineering when you have intimate knowledge of the direction of the product and or business and when an engineering decision may create technical debt. Other than that, code practices should be left up to your technical lead or whatever title they have been given.
- Leave engineering up to engineering. Even if you are a technical product manager, your concern should be solving the problems and creating value for your end users. Your job as a technical PM comes into play with engineering when you have intimate knowledge of the direction of the product and or business and when an engineering decision may create technical debt. Other than that, code practices should be left up to your technical lead or whatever title they have been given.
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