I thought that product management is a skill I can learn by attending a class. After listening to the lectures and guest speakers I now understand that product management is a skill that is built over time. I thought the following responsibilities to be an exhaustive list of a PM’s job: managing strategy, tasks and people involved in building a product.
What I know now, thanks to the wonderful guest speakers, is that a PM is responsible for everything and get the reward for nothing. Sometimes the job includes doing everything that needs to be done and sometimes it includes doing nothing but supporting your team members. An insight that was echoed by all speakers was that the role and responsibilities of a PM vary greatly between companies. At a startup a PM might be more of a Project Manager or a mini-CEO whereas at big companies being a PM means building out product features together with a product team.
“Welcome aboard flight CS177 to scheduling heaven. This is your PM Laura speaking.”
I was able to get a glimpse at what it means to be a PM during the group project. I stepped into the role of the PM for two weeks and I enjoyed it a greatly. I even felt a little sad when I had to switch roles at the end of the rotation. Being our group’s PM made me care very much about the project and even more so about the wellbeing of my teammates. When I took over the PM role my group felt discouraged, and I could sense that there was unspoken frustration and concerns. I set aside time during our weekly group meeting to openly discuss our feelings and what we need change to make everyone feel engaged. I introduced a rolling agenda with timed discussion items as well as a shared task sheet. This allowed everyone to view their tasks, the associated deadlines and the team’s overall progress. I tried to be creative with my announcements, so I recorded a themed voice message stating action items. (e.g. “Welcome aboard flight CS177 to scheduling heaven. This is your PM Laura speaking. …”) And of course, I bought coffee for everyone like a good PM should! To be honest, I had a great time being the PM.
If we had more time, I would love to take the PM role for at least 4 weeks in a row and start experimenting with some of the tools and strategies we heard about in class. Besides OKRs, I would love to try “Jobs to be Done” and fleshing out a robust outcomes-oriented roadmap. In addition, I would like to pay more attention to touchy-feely topics such as conversational bids and giving structured feedback.
In general, the class was not what I expected, but neither was the job of a PM. In that sense, I guess the class was representative of what it means to be a product manager. In a next iteration of CS177, I would love to be introduced to most of the frameworks right in the beginning of the quarter so that every PM gets a chance to try them out no matter when it is their turn. I would also prefer a less entrepreneurial, and more procedural focus of the class to allow for in-depth learnings in respect to the usage of frameworks and tools within the process of building a product.
