What is a product manager? Seriously though...
I’ve been a product manager for more than a decade, and I’m pretty sure my oldest, best friend still doesn't know what I do for work. This is not her fault, no product manager in history has properly explained what we do.
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(Read to the end for the full video!)
Why is it so hard to explain what a product manager is?
What does it mean to be a PM?
Here’s my definition of a product manager that I use in my courses:
“A product manager guides the product team to launch products that solve the most impactful and valuable customer problems.”
So that’s the best definition ever, because it’s mine, and now you know exactly what a product manager does. No? Still confused?
The problem is I’m summarizing all the many things we do as product managers in product manager jargon, which may sound like gibberish to anyone outside of Product. It’s a lot to compress.
In the past, our industry has tried to create an understandable definition of what product managers do, but these attempts all fell short.
You’ve got the Venn diagram definition, where PM is the intersection of UX, Tech, and Business. This is immediately flawed, because if you need to draw something on a whiteboard to explain what you do, the Bobs are not gonna be impressed.
Then there’s the “product managers are like mini-CEOs” definition, which was a popular way to describe PMs in the past and I admit I loooved telling people I was a “mini-CEO” but it’s not true. CEOs have ultimate authority and decision making power, the power to fire people, but product managers have to fight for trust and influence all the time, especially when you’re starting out. So yeah, you’re not a CEO. Sorry.
Defining a product manager’s job is hard, because it’s a little bit different everywhere you go, and every day on the job feels different too. Matt LeMay described this really well in Product Management in Practice. He said product managers do “whatever it takes.” In Cracking the PM Interview the authors doubled down on this idea when they wrote: “When you’re a product manager, your job is anything that isn’t being covered by other people.”
So true. Product managers do All. The. Things. So clear now, right? Err.. probably not.
It takes an entire village to build a great product and turn it into a successful business. The engineers are coding, the designers are designing, the marketers are marketing, the salespeople are selling. Who’s bringing them all together and managing the entire product? Usually, it’s a person who is called a product manager. Sometimes it’s the founder, or the CEO, or a program manager, the point is, there is someone who is responsible for making sure all the pieces come together in the end so that it doesn’t end up looking like a bunch of kindergarteners threw paint at the wall.
People sometimes compare product managers to conductors. Without the PM to conduct the orchestra, the music will be all over the place, everyone will be playing to their own beat. But there’s a big difference… if a drummer is out sick, the conductor’s not gonna step in to fill that role. But as a product manager, if your marketing partner quits, you’re probably gonna have to step in and write some ad copy. If you don’t have a data analyst, that’s your job now. You have to fill in the gaps. You're responsible for the whole product.
And that means you could be doing one or all of these things in the list below on any given day… Besides talking to customers and working closely with your engineering and design partners to solve problems, you’ll be doing things like managing progress towards goals, giving lots of presentations, managing stakeholders and expectations from execs, preparing for launches, and of course, bribing your team with snacks. Again, you’re responsible for the whole product.
I’ve always thought that being a product manager is a lot like being an entrepreneur. I know, I know, I just said we’re not like CEOs, but hear me out, entrepreneurs are different… the connotation is totally different. “CEO” makes you think of control and authority, but when I think of entrepreneurs I imagine people who are scrappy, skilled in so many different things. You have to have grit and focus and flexibility and a growth mindset. You have to be inspiring and strategic.
Years ago I used to joke that I quit being an entrepreneur to become a product manager because it was pretty much the same thing, but you usually don’t have to beg for funding, and you get a paycheck.
Ohh, let’s try that on for a new colloquial definition:
Being a product manager is like being an entrepreneur. It’s your job to figure out what your team should build with limited time and resources, and you have to do whatever it takes to make your product great.
What do you think? How do you define this job? Drop your definitions in the comments!
And of course, here’s the full video. Enjoy!