I see a product manager as someone with many roles. It involves overseeing a project from conception to delivery and beyond, ensuring that business goals and user needs are both met. Product managers balance customer needs, business objectives, and technical feasibility and are often in the middle, communicating between designers, engineers, marketing, customers, and sales. They shape the long-term vision and strategic direction of the product and address any risks, blockers, and other issues that may arise during the development of the product. They also may conduct user research to figure out needs for the product. Additionally, they are responsible for the product meeting its business goals evaluated through KPIs and other user analytics and thus are responsible for the success or failure of the project despite not having a direct role in any part of the product as, for example, a software engineer would have in building it out technically.
Some questions I would have for the author of this book are: how do you balance business needs with user needs? How do you handle blockers and delays? What is the day-to-day life of a product manager like?
