A while back, I was one of those people who thought product management and project management were the same thing. Sure, one title seems to focus on the finished product and the other seems to focus on the process/production of the project, but I thought they were similar enough. As I gained more curiosity about product management though, I realized the title’s role was more ambiguous than I thought. Just like many others have likely experienced, no one really gave me a consistent definition of the role. So I personally summarized the job as “being the person who builds the roads, highways, and tunnels between all members of a project group, and also being the person who maintains them so that all members can function well and succeed.” My general picture of an average day consisted of lots of email correspondences and meetings, making team and individual check-ins, anticipating team needs, and being resourceful in finding/suggesting solutions to those needs.
After reading this chapter, I was slightly surprised to hear that product managers do less “technical” work in comparison to actual developers on projects. Granted, it doesn’t exclude them from taking on some technical work or contributing to it, but it wasn’t necessarily as “overachiever-like” as I thought it was. Interestingly enough, I’m not sure where I quite fit after understanding that. I have almost always been defaulted to technical roles in teams, but I have had to put on a “product management-like” hat before to help teams get things together. I suppose I will learn more as this class goes on!
A question for Matt LeMay: what are some helpful things, in your experience, that team/project members can do to help the product manager?
