
What, exactly, is a Product Manager? - jsavimbi
http://mindtheproduct.com/2011/10/what-exactly-is-a-product-manager/
======
tptacek
Kind of fluffy. I always worry about descriptions of roles that seem more
about selling the role than about the stuff the role owns; you worry about
aspirants getting the words "product manager" on their b-card and then not
doing anything, like what happened with "architects".

Product managers own most, often all, of:

* Customer outreach: The PM is ostensibly the one with routine scheduled calls to all the clients to collect feedback.

* Feature/function/benefit: the PM usually co-owns the roadmap with engineering, and the split is usually that the PM mostly owns the ordering of things on the roadmap, engineering owns the time estimates, PM describes the feature and the business benefits it solves --- both to customers and, when the job is done right, to engineering.

* Pricing and packaging (in a startup, the PM is probably going to own pricing; in a mature company, nobody is going to trust the PM to own the most important business decision about the product).

* Competitive analysis: the PM is who you blame if you get blindsided by a customer dropping your product for a competing offering.

In mature companies the PM role often ends here and is picked up on the other
side by Marcom, who is in turn going to outsource the copywriting and design
of white papers and sales material and websites. In a startup, you'd expect
the PM is going to own the marcom stuff too.

For a startup, most of what Joel writes on Joel on Software, especially the
earlier posts, is a record of the job of a small company product manager.

~~~
chris100
Yes, but in startups, being a PM is often very hard, because no one _has_ to
listen to you. So you need to bring your own credibility and influence so the
product gets done properly.

It's hard, and "fluffy" at the same time :-)

~~~
tptacek
Oh, definitely. Sorry, I sounded like I was criticizing the post. I really
just want to make the case that PM is _not_ a fluffy role. "Architect", "CTO",
"advocate", "community manager", "evangelist", "information design" --- all
carry fluffy connotations. PM owns nuts-and-bolts stuff that companies need to
be doing, no matter who's doing them.

------
pkaler
My favourite resource on the topic is "Good Product Manager, Bad Product
Manager". [http://benhorowitz.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/good-
product-...](http://benhorowitz.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/good-product-
manager.pdf)

It's a training document that Ben Horowitz wrote when he was at Netscape. More
here: [http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/14/why-startups-should-train-
th...](http://bhorowitz.com/2010/05/14/why-startups-should-train-their-
people/)

------
nradov
In a Scrum environment the PM often fills the Product Owner role.

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Scrum_%28deve...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Scrum_%28development%29#Core_Scrum_roles)

"The Product Owner represents the voice of the customer and is accountable for
ensuring that the Team delivers value to the business. The Product Owner
writes customer-centric items (typically user stories), prioritizes them, and
adds them to the product backlog."

------
kyberneticka
So, now I have an answer to what my job is. The problem is finding another job
at a company I don't hate.

------
orky56
I always view the PM as a mini-CEO.

Rather than evangelizing the product in the community to gain funding with
investors, it's about acquiring the resources and good will within the
company. You still need all the skills to not necessarily create the product
but rather know what it takes.

That being said, it's very safe. It's entrepreneurial just short of being an
entrepreneur. I'd like to think it's the best position to gain experience for
starting your own venture without actually developing/designing the product.

~~~
itcmcgrath
I've been working as a PM for the last 4 months and taken Pragmatic Marketing
training as well.

I think the 'mini-CEO' analogy is an extremely flawed one that discounts a
large portion of a CEO's job and marginalizes the real and very significant
differences between even those parts that are similar. This is particularly
the case CEO's of medium to large companies.

This isn't as true for CEO's of start-ups, but that is because the CEO will
possibly be fulfilling the PM role as well, not so much that the PM role is
like the CEO role.

However, I do agree with looking at it as an entrepreneurial role.

~~~
jsavimbi
I've been at single-digit startups and *500 companies and entrepreneurial role
fits the bill. I'd say in some cases they are the CEO of their own business
unit with capacity for setting the product direction, selecting the team and
establishing/punishing timetables. Usually in that case, they'll have X
project managers under them carrying out instructions, but in the case of a
small company they do usually sit somewhere between ops/tech/mktg and somehow
guide with diplomacy.

------
sudonim
Being a product manager is a lot like my experience in college. It's easy to
do a bad job and get a C but takes a lot of work get an A.

I can't believe it's been over a year since I submitted my article covering
the same topic: <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1627668>

I focused a little more on early stage startups, but a lot of the same rings
through.

A lot of people have had experiences with bad product managers. From the
feedback from my team, I don't think I fall into that camp. Here's why:

* I learn as much as I can about our technology stack. I try to understand what's hard and what's easy to build. I even write code for our app when I have a chance.

* I try to remove blockers so everyone else can do their job better.

* I give anyone on the team the opportunity to comment on the work that I'm doing. Nothing we're building is ever a surprise.

* I make our longer term goals clear and try to show how what we're building this week gets us closer.

I've never worked with bad product managers. I've always been the lone product
manager on a team and have taught myself how to do the job well. It's
something I enjoy doing, but can be pretty stressful. Ultimately, the buck
stops with me and the success or failure of the execution of the product is on
my shoulders.

------
yangtheman
Product manager, IMHO, is an owner of a product and therefore responsible for
the success of the product. That means the role and responsibility of a
product manager touch on many aspects of product development and delivery. I
have been a product manager at a social gaming and a web company, so my
answers have to do more with such space.

\- Own analytics. Don't trust qualitative stuff, but trust quantitative stuff.
Track important metrics and monitor performance. One of the metrics should be
revenue generation.

\- Do many experiments on subset or all users. This is our way of finding out
what customers want. First is intuition, but verify it with experiments.

\- Own and prioritize specs and stories (in agile dev sense). This is where
the cross with business part comes in and kinda obvious. Spec/story priorities
should align with business objectives.

\- User acquisition and retention. This part touches on marketing part. How to
get new users? How to retain users? Social media? Email campaigns? Contests?
Sweepstakes? Partnership?

\- Etc., etc., etc.

But, ultimately, PM is responsible for success of product(s) s/he manages, and
thus do whatever is necessary to make it happen.

------
jeffreymcmanus
> Sorry, this does mean that you are a suit

Nope, that's not true at every company. In some companies PMs are part of the
business unit, at others they're part of the engineering organization, and
sometimes they form their own organization that sits in between engineering
and business. There's no one right way to do it.

I'd argue that the first PM hire at a startup should report directly to the
CEO since it's likely that the PM will act as the proxy for the business (and
by extension the customer). At the same time, I'm seeing an increasing trend
toward PMs with technical skills -- my guess is that within a few years it
will not be possible to succeed in a PM role without at least some hands-on
technical experience.

------
tseabrooks
As a follow up question:

What do I do to go from Software Engineer to Product Manager?

~~~
williamcotton
Amongst other things, take a pay cut I would imagine.

~~~
jbl
Not necessarily. This depends on the companies one is leaving and going to.
Sure, if you are leaving an engineering position at Facebook or Google, this
is probably true. Amongst young but not newborn startups, it could very well
be a bump in pay depending on background and experience.

------
richcollins
_Well-well look. I already told you: I deal with the god damn customers so the
engineers don't have to. I have people skills; I am good at dealing with
people. Can't you understand that? What the hell is wrong with you people?_

<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGS2tKQhdhY>

------
meanguy
Product manager: coordinating officer, delegating company divisional chores /
From manufacturing to vacuum-wrapping packaging, a model of corporate exacti-
ture / He's pre-eminent -- isn't it evident? -- as his title infers / His word
is law, yes it's an advantage / if he's managing the product that is yours

------
timcederman
A favourite article of mine by Ken Norton - how to hire a product manager.
<http://www.kennethnorton.com/essays/productmanager.html>

------
killion
This is a good writeup. I get asked the question a lot so now I can point
people here. Thanks!

------
jsavimbi
I'd love to see a post from someone(s) about "What, exactly, is a great
Product Manager?". I've worked with good, bad and ugly but never a great one.
Either that or I wouldn't recognize a great one out of my own ignorance.

