I found this chapter really helpful in clarifying what product management is (and what it isn’t). During a past internship, I worked with a product manager but honestly had no idea what his role was until I sat him down for an hour to ask about his job. From this experience, I agree with LeMay’s central point that a product manager’s main responsibility is to bring out the best in their team. The most effective managers measure their own success through the success of others. In that sense, I think LeMay is right that signs of bad product management include an overworked team or a product manager who tries to build the product themselves, since they suggest that the PM isn’t enabling others to succeed.
I’m also intrigued by how horizontal the product manager’s role is. Unlike other roles that focus deeply on one silo, product managers need to cross disciplines and connect people from different disciplines to push a product. This helped me understand why product managers end up carrying a lot of responsibility but little formal authority, constantly working in the middle to align everyone.
My one question to LeMay is on his skepticism of specialized product management roles. He notes that companies define product management differently, which makes sense; every organization has unique structures and products. But because of this flexibility, I think specialized PM roles are not only valid but sometimes necessary. Why shouldn’t there be growth product managers when certain products only focus on growth? Or technical product managers who need deep expertise in AI to manage AI-driven products? Just as we have frontend/backend engineers or machine learning engineers, it seems natural to me to recognize specializations where the product domain demands it. Perhaps I’m not fully understanding how product managers adapt to different companies and products, but I feel like specialization seems like it would be normal in product management.
