Product Managers as Connectors Across Teams
Having read the preface and first chapter of Product Management in Practice, I can see that product management is a diverse, and context-dependent endeavor, which deeply aligns to the flexibility, but also multitasking, that I so deeply look for in a job after graduation! IN my understanding , as I also shared in class with my peers, the PM is the connector who ensures the multiple functions of a team (engineering, design, research, and marketing) are aligned around a shared vision. They define user needs by turning them into actionable goals! Define features by ranking them by agreed-upon criteria, and keep a strategic mindset while balancing the trade-offs and priorities.
Providing advice without Controlling
Something important to highlight from my understanding of the readings is that a PM is not usually the one doing each and every task, but the ones who handle collaboration, ensure accountability among the team, set the communication tone, and even inspires the team by letting them use their expertise to help others (usually interns) through mentorship. What I understand from the readings is that the PMs who are most successful are navigators who can keep everyone engaged toward their collective goal, without shutting down creativity.
My experience as a “PM” in my community (Peru)
My perspective on a product manager’s role has been somewhat shaped by a summer I spent directing a technology initiative in my indigenous Quechua-speaking community located in rural Cusco, Peru (Quechua is one of the most indigenous languages in Peru and even in most Andean areas in Latin America). I oversaw a project to develop a mobile platform that provided digital literacy workshops for students and families with very limited resources, teaching them about STEM subjects in their schools (from health and bioengineering to economics and astrophysics) and even contacting professors, students, and local municipalities to support us with materials. In this capacity, I coordinated volunteers in the community, local educators, and even software engineers to ensure that the platform featured the cultural and linguistic needs of our Quechua indigenous community. It was arduous work, but I feel that this experience taught me that the ability to connect different perspectives is just very critical for a PM’s success, as well as their ability to deeply understand user needs to carry out a good project/product!
Questions for the Author
After finishing the book, I came up with a few questions. First, I had some curiosity about the author’s perspective on the relationship between frameworks with structure as opposed to flexibility (i.e, PMs knowing when they should rely on things like Agile or OKRs frameworks versus granting agency depending upon their team’s or their users’ needs). Secondly, and this is my last question, is that I was wondering about alternative methods for leading product initiatives within communities with little to no technology network or economies where cultural context is salient to behavioral aspects, like some parts of Latin America. How can we redesign/adapt the role of PM in these contexts? How can we become better and more culturally aware PMs to really understand our specific user needs here despite limited resources?
