After reading Chapter 1 of “Product Management in Practice,” my initial confusion around product management, which was a prominent reason of why I was interested in taking this course, was reaffirmed: there is no (exact) definition of what it means to be a product manager. The job description varies company by company depending on project, scale, organizational structure, etc. However, there are constants surrounding what product managers must do, such as navigating ambiguity and communicating, supporting, and facilitating across various teams to meet a goal.
The chapter made clear that while many people, myself included, initially believe being a PM is about “building products,” the real challenges lie in figuring out for yourself what it is you must do to align cross-functional teams (whether that be engineering, design, sales, etc.) to ensure successful stewardship of value exchange between the business and customer. As such, if something needs to get done, it is a PMs role to ensure that it is, with the reading emphasizing that no matter the bumps in various teams along the way, the responsibility of the product’s outcome falls on the PM. What appealed to me greatly about the role was the success of the PM depends on their ability to bring out the best in others, which reframes the role as one centered on people.
A question I would ask is how can one prepare for a role with such variability with no previous exposure to a specific company, since it seems to vary business to business?
