As explained in the reading, a product manager highly varies from company to company. However, the word that I would use to best describe a product manager is a middleman. The PM sits at the middle of several groups — developers, designers, data, sales, etc. They act as a facilitator between everyone, conversing with people of different professional backgrounds and essentially playing a game of connect-the-dots. In addition, they hold no real power; the obstacle of serving a PM role is to command without holding influence.
What became apparent to me after doing the reading is that the soft skills a PM holds are much more vital than anything technical. Technical knowledge can be learned, but soft skills take a much longer time for someone to develop. The ability to communicate effectively and understand differing perspectives is extremely valuable in a PM position.
A question that I have for this author is: how do you best recommend an aspiring PM to work on developing the skills necessary for this role (i.e. good collaboration, etc.)?
