Zappos does not have an official PM title, instead, it relies on employees to perform “product” duties wherever possible, as they act as founders who are managing a micro-enterprise. This means that all the decisions are made internally by these employees (in teams/circles) and are responsible for their decisions. Spotify has a Squad Leader that acts as a PM, where they bridge design, engineering and strategy. The squad (cross-functional team) decides what gets built based on advice from the tribe (bigger teams). The Squad Leader defines the priority, but gets heavy input from design and engineering. For Airbnb, their PM role is also responsible for a lot of the strategy such as go to market, marketing and execution. Major decisions are made by the CEO for a product, where he must give the yes to proceed, and product designers are given much more power to be on par with product managers when making product decisions. I feel like all three companies have drastically different definitions of what a product manager’s role is, and all three have extreme characteristics, such as Airbnb, where the product manager has low control over the product, but still has very high accountability if the product/feature fails. I feel like Spotify has the closest role to a traditional product manager, where the PM is responsible for defining the vision, and the roadmap for the product. Despite how complicated their squad and tribes model is, I do see value in the “squad.” Having an autonomous cross-functional team that is able to perform and lead a long-term vision, that acts as its own mini startup, sounds motivating for talent that wants to scale faster, and also have impact on the company faster. The only issue that a lot of people note when thinking about this model is alignment. When multiple squads function towards a different goal, it’s hard to keep track of who’s doing what and/or if it has already been done in a different team.
