My understanding of a product manager is someone who sees the product throughout its life cycle, from its beginning to its end. Their sole interest is to be a mediator between multiple groups interested in its ideation, creation, and release, often collaborating with design and tech leads. They take ownership over the product, filling in roles that need to be filled, and overall are responsible for its success.
Product managers can take a variety of roles across different backgrounds. In some companies such as Amazon, they are recruited to have expertise in business. In Google, product managers are typically former software engineers and have a technical background.
Regardless of how big the company is, product managers wear a lot of hats in order to support and understand teams. They are a jack-of-all-trades whose general expertise allows for flexibility in their roles and to support in any way that they can.
In Matt LeMay’s Product Management in Practice, LeMay goes into detail of their own personal experience in product management. They advise that product managers are proactive and take responsibility for their products by helping their teams work together and also support teams.
LeMay goes over several stereotypical bad product management personalities as well. It is best to not overwork your teams, to be able to communicate effectively, and not be extreme over in terms of responsibility.
I think that product management, at least in the tech field, may have changed significantly. As someone interested in the technical aspects of a product management role, I’m curious to see how LeMay’s general practice tips apply to the technical world.
Additionally, what exactly makes a good product manager besides a combination of soft skills that can placate or communicate within teams? I imagine that it is difficult to understand every role well enough to provide meaningful support. As a product manager, you’re working with numerous teams, all of which have their own opinions and whatnot. Who ultimately makes a decision, is it simply between the tech lead, design lead, and the product manager?
I’m also curious as to how to product manager interacts with teams. Is it traditionally with team leadership, or does the product manager work with all members of them team? Is it more support with individual tasks and members or more so with big pictures?
LeMay discusses how that product managers have less authority but a lot of responsibility. Then, who has the authority? Between all of the fields, who has the ultimate say in the design and engineering of the product? Are product managers interested in the overall success of the product or are they interested in maintaining proper communication and collaboration between groups? Even still, between the idea of iterating and revising product management for future product development, who evaluates product managers themselves?
Overall, product management contains subjectivity as product managers seem more generalized and they don’t belong to a specific objective besides a strong obligation to fill whatever holes to get the product to be successful.
