I see product management as a jack of all trades role that holds the team together like glue. If the entire team is composed of different subcomponents, like, a brick wall with multiple layers and rows, the PM is the mortar that holds the team together and supports the team and leaks into every crack in the individual bricks themselves. Or something like a 16-in-1 victorinox/swiss army knife filled with different gadgets and tools fo suit a plethora of needs. They must understand every level of the product hierarchy, from the users to costomers and all the moving parts and roles that bring that to fruition. They must have enough working knowledge of all the roles they interact with and manage in order to work effectively and guide each role as well as understand the limitations and capabilities of each role in bringing a product vision to reality; this working knowledge is also critical for establishing their reputation as a confident and competent leader. They must be someone who is fluent at communicating with people, both written and vocal, and also be someone who is organized and structured and has a knack for setting estimates and short and long term planning and facilitating interactions between other people. It’s a role that requires a blend and union of both hard and soft skills — they simply cannot lack one or the other and must have both to do their job well. I liked the description in the reading of product management being an “ambiguously defined product role” — I feel like that sentiment does seem to reflect in the role of the PM’s as well where they often don’t quite have a specified role and are instead required to adapt and fill roles as needed, and it’s something that differs across different companies and teams and types of products as well. And I liked the respresentation in the reading of the triple venn diagram, where the PM sits at some intersection of UX, Tech, and business. I think the way it was described as “Creating Alignment” between roles rather than posessing every single skill that could potentially be necessary was a great way to describe it.
A question I have for the author is how much the product itself influenced the working experience of being a PM, and generally, how to really learn all of these skills effectively in the workplace, especially as a beginning PM or someone who is transitioning from a tech heavy role.
