I see a product manager as being the “oil” of a “well-oiled machine.” The product manager is not the entire machine nor the conductor of it. Instead, they are responsible for making sure all the moving parts are working together as they should.
A misconception that I had before reading this chapter was that product managers are “CEOs” of their products, making most of the decisions about how their products will be designed, launched, sold, etc. Instead, the chapter introduced me to the multifaceted responsibilities of a product manager, none of them being “CEO.” I now understand that product managers are facilitators who must be prepared for situations in which the expectations of the sales or design team may clash with what the legal experts or engineers envision for the product.
