From Matt LeMay I understand the product manager’s job is not something that could necessarily be summarized on one company’s job posting. It’s different depending on the work environment, the time of year, and the product you are working on. But there are a few points that are clear to me, and those were the three things LeMay pointed out in Chapter 1: product management is about having lots of responsibility but little authority, doing whatever it takes to get the product done, and being in the middle of all the chaos.
Sometimes it seems like a conflicting mix of ideas. For example, if I as the product manager need to do “whatever it takes to get it done,” and we’re approaching a strict deadline that either I or a higher-up had set, then how much do I need to interfere before I become the “fine, I’ll do it myself” person? In that case, it seems like the answer would not be just take all the tasks on my own, it would be to delegate them appropriately so the rest of the team understands the problem at hand, and I can focus on improving communication between players.
An analogy that I really love is the comparison of a product manager to a manager at a restaurant. The reason why this specific managerial position makes sense compared to just any manager is that you are responsible for a wide range of skills. A manager of an engineering team needs to worry about just the engineering, and of course within that there are many discrepancies but the general understanding remains. The manager of a restaurant would be responsible for waiters, hosts, and the kitchen, all while maintaining a smile on customers’ faces. A product manager is responsible for engineers, designers, and third-party groups all while keeping a smile on users’ faces. And that means wearing different hats when the time comes, and taking responsibility for the team’s failures.
I grew up as a freelance artist, and have mainly worked professionally in engineering or computer science research. Most of these roles are not rooted in collaboration, and you are responsible for the thing you make. A product manager, to me, seems the furthest thing from an artist. An artist needs to worry about their own art, and they can blame themselves when a brushstroke from their hand completely ruins the painting. A product manager could never see that brushstroke made, see its consequences, and be wholly responsible for it (life’s not fair). Then they have to make the tough decisions of how to backtrack and fix it, and to do that successfully they need to know every part of the project as if they are the artist themselves. It’s certainly complicated.
Question to the author: How can you find the perfect balance between doing too much and not doing enough as a PM?
