When I was being hired for my first internship this past summer and was frankly telling my hiring manager (who, in my case, ended up being my boss) how the PM role was something apparently very new – at least seemingly – from everything I had done before, he had an interesting comment.
He said being a product manager is having the engineering team pull your arm, leadership ripping your head off, the design team pulling your other arm, and everyone else pulling your remaining legs off – all at the same time. I may be embellishing some details, but that was the idea. Simply said, he characterized the PM role as one where you’re the glue that holds everything and everyone together – which is critical for stable progress in an organization.
While I superficially understood it then, I totally understand it now and would define PM the same way. I notice the word “cross-functional” being thrown a lot in job descriptions, but being a PM – whether at the large or small organization – definitely fits that mold.
Although, I think I like being that glue – despite the gory metaphor my manager used. Having boundaries (eg. when it comes to working hours + what others expect of you) while holding the fort and creating new products or sustaining existing ones is a neat metaphor for life. Sounds very wishy-washy and meta, but it’s very much an exercise where you train yourself to optimize your time, do things as simply and efficiently as possible, keep others happy, and prioritize your own wellbeing. That just seems like a good transferrable skill to have.
Question I had for Matt:
If you (generally) were a PM that wanted to shift into a more specific adjacent such as engineering, will you be viewed as a jack of all trades but a master of none OR someone truly competent to take on the new discipline?
