Intuitively, product management centers around two aspects: product and management. The chapter challenges this notion and proposes that product management is actually less about building a desirable product or managing it, but more about having genuine interests in the work, which often involves dealing with ambiguity. There are multiple aspects of this ambiguity: there are ambiguities in the direction of the product; the role each member plays on the team; how to spend one’s time. What we do know is that there is no fixed formula for a successful product management – there are hard requirements about the education or work background. Given the ambiguities and differences across cases and scenarios, the chapter makes the attempt to come up with broader generalizations about what constitutes a successful product manager role. There are three key components, and I comment on each one below:
Bring out the best in the people on your team: each product manager works with various other roles, such as engineers and designers. Each role has different requirements, and people are good at very different things, revealing their different interests and strengths. The personalities might also differ. For example, software engineers tend to be organized, structured thinkers who are problem-oriented, while designers could be more creative. Therefore, it is often hard to unite the vision. The key role for a product manager, as I see it, would be to understand the unique strengths and interests of each team member and make the job interesting and fulfilling for each one so people can work together for one united final outcome.
Work with people outside of your immediate team, who are not directly incentivized to work with you. It is also important to collaborate outside the immediate team to gain perspective. For example, how does the product fit under the bigger ecosystem of the company? What are some other related workflows or pipelines? To answer these questions, a good PM would need to broaden their horizon and not be limited by challenges they face for their immediate products.
Deal with ambiguity. The chapter emphasizes that ambiguity often arises in PM work, and different problems require unique solutions. Instead of imposing some fixed structure or framework, it is often more ideal to be adaptable and flexible and embrace uncertainties.
