Product Management in Practice

Generally speaking, a product manager’s role entails the holistic ownership of a company’s product and/or service. As such, the actual responsibilities and duties differ greatly by company and even by product since there are different requirements in different niches. This may involve the early programming and planning for product development or it may include the tedious work that others don’t want to do—the product manager steps in where the product requires them to step in. More importantly, a phenomenal product manager is one who takes ownership of their work’s successes and failures. With such ambiguity, a product manager might feel that they need to outwork everyone else, which they usually measure through the number of hours they put in. As the author explains, a budding product manager should “measure [their] success by the impact [they’re] having on the business, users, and teams—not how many hours [they’re] working” (Iemay 17). To an extent, a product manager’s role also requires the facilitation of actual human relationships and communication because they need to ensure that this machine—the product—is always headed in the right direction. Any potential strain in relationships and/or communication could derail the product’s mission. There are a few questions that I still have for the role of a product manager. For instance, I’m curious how an experienced product manager traverses the landscape if they either don’t like the product that they’re working on or if they’re not confident in the chances of success. This seems to be a tricky venture because the product manager is still an employee of the company, so they won’t get definitive autonomy to simply switch products or get staffed on only their interests. Additionally, I’m interested in learning the common turn-around strategies for products that seem to be failing or performing poorly. It would be fascinating to understand the various strategies that are employed to facilitate a smooth progression into product success and further development.