This reading was so informative, validating, and relieving for me all at once. It was informative in the sense that it gave me a much more concrete idea of what a PM can do and how they can fit into a company. It was very validating in the sense that I, as a Product Design student, often wondered what roles I could get in the realm of PMs without a CS degree, and not only did this validate that I could fit into a PM role, but also that a lot of the skills we learn in Product Design, especially the soft skills like communication of complex ideas and flexibility, could be extra beneficial in this role. It was doubly validating, because I have seen in these very same design classes people who fit the niches of the “bad PMs” that Matt Lemay listed, such as the Steve Jobs Acolyte, the Jargon Jockey, and the Product Martyr. It was validating to have seen in words actions and attitudes that in my own experience I have seen as not conducive to the progress of projects or products. It was also relieving to determine them so as to avoid them for myself in the future, since I have most definitely fallen into some of these roles before in my life. Most of all, however, it was relieving to know that I actually get much more of the idea of what a PM is than I realized, since a lot of it is dependent on the companies. I am also relieved to see myself excited at the possibility of a role in Product Management.
Questions:
What are some practices one can use to check themselves that they are not straying into any “bad PM” roles?
What is a list of some crucial skills you think PMs in general should have?
What could a day-to-day look like? I really appreciated a lot of the concrete examples of what a PM does in different companies, but I am still struggling to imagine what a 9-5 (or 10-4 as the author said one of their best roles as a PM entailed) would be comprised of. It would greatly help me to see this layed out in a day schedule hypothetical. Of course, I recognize one of the main points of Ch. 1 was the idea that PM greatly varies, but even some schedules representing this variation greatly would help me imagine.
