Ambiguity of the PM Role
A product manager’s role can vary heavily from company to company, and role titles themselves can even switch depending on what company you’re at. The distinction between Product Owners, Product Managers, and Program Managers isn’t standardized between companies which can create even more confusion. A product manager at Company X can have the same jurisdiction and day-to-day as a program manager at Company Y, and two product managers at Company Z may have completely different daily schedules. The role may also depend on the size or maturity of the company. For instance, a product manager at an early stage start up may be required to fill in for tasks that no one is able to pick up; they could act as a data scientist or a designer for a day. On the other hand, a product manager at an established Big Tech company may only focus on a subset of the product it manages like computing for Microsoft Azure; the tasks may be much more clear and niche.
Responsibilities and Traits of a PM
This ambiguity surrounding the role emphasizes the need for Product Managers to clearly understand the role their stepping into and fill the necessary gap. This requires a lot of discovery, and a lot of the information or data that a product manager is looking for might not be readily available. A good product manager is one that never thinks a task is too beneath them or out of scope, but rather takes on tasks readily. Another common trait is to act as a liaison between business stakeholders and the teams who build or sell the products such as engineers, designers, or sales people. While product managers are not the boss of these teams, they are the glue that allow these teams to effectively communicate between each other. They should be able to change their communication styles depending on the audience they are communicating with, including learning technical and non-technical language for both types of stakeholders.
Despite the ambiguity of the role’s responsibilities and how each role is heavily dependent on the company itself, there are common characteristics. For instance, a common denominator of the role is taking responsibility over the product’s outcomes despite having limited power. The product’s successes and failures fall on the shoulders of the product manager despite having a limited amount of authority. This is usually because product managers look at the product from a higher or more long term perspective to ensure it’s current progress aligns with the business’s long-term strategy.
Question to the Author
One question I have for the author of the book is how to best learn the role’s responsibilities and scope when you first start the role at a company. Is it better to just try and fail rapidly, trying to gain skills and experiences on the way, or is better to pause and shadow those who did the role before you? I would also ask how long does it typically take to grasp the role’s responsibility.
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Mina Ky
