I see product managers as the glue that holds together a broader product team (engineering, design, business, etc.). Given the myriad of different functions that a PM is responsible for as well as the variety between companies, it seems that the most concrete description of this role is that a PMs job is to enable teams to build a good product through managing the competing interests of each team. Much of the work a PM does sounds like getting different teams on similar enough pages to work together on the product. It is the PMs job to make sure that engineering, design and business teams work well with each other while keeping the direction of the product in mind.
It also seems like the PM needs to be a generalist and be able to pitch in when needed on engineering, design or business tasks. As a result, much of the PMs job also is related to knowing just enough about the product in these realms in order to execute on this function. Of course, the amount of generalist work would vary across companies and maybe even teams but this aspect does seem to be consistent across definitions of product management.
How do you tell the difference between insecurity versus simply not knowing as much as you should about a topic?
