As Matt LeMay says, the role of a product manager isn’t a discrete definition but a continuous and adapting set of objectives with the express goal of moving the product forward. If I had to put the definition in my own words, I would state it simply as “anticipating and filling the needs of the product.” While seemingly simple, I believe this definition captures the wide-ranging responsibilities that a product manager could have as well as the job regarding those responsibilities.
As we experienced with the DoorDash exercise in class, we not only had to decide if the rural market was worth exploring, but also how we would plan to reach the market, and the steps we would take to execute the plan. This was a combination of both the definitions that LeMay uses to describe a product manager: as both a manager of the teams day to day-to-day and the owner of the product’s business outcomes. This shows that every task, operation, and “job” that a product manager has to accomplish is diverse and unique to the situation.
My biggest question for LeMay is why there isn’t a streamlined, consistent role between major companies for a product manager? If a product manager could have two completely different meanings in between two different companies, why even describe it as a new role instead of keeping it under the same “PM” umbrella?
Many big tech companies use the same framework and mechanisms for software engineering in order to keep track of tasks. Even though a software engineer is a more concrete role, it still seems strange that there isn’t a concrete set of tasks for a PM to follow.
