Product management has been my field of choice for 6 of the past 9 years. The other 3 were spent on a form of sabbatical which yielded nice business and sales lessons but weren’t altogether monetarily enriching (read, boondoggle). Fortunately, I found those lessons to be useful in my return to this illustrious and sometimes infamous profession known as product management.
I’ve been asked what a product manager is – usually because people confuse product management with project management. My response has been that a PM is like a mini CEO. He’s the master of his own business… almost. He sets business direction, builds strategy, and hob-knobs with executives. He also has no employees and he doesn’t deal with Wall Street. A pretty sweet deal, indeed.
On the other hand, the PM gets cussed by engineering for directing them to build things they don’t want to, hounded by manufacturing for forecasts (guesses?) that are never right, and harassed by account reps who wonder why their huge deal fell apart because the price the PM placed upon the widget is far too high…. In other words, the PM actually wanted to charge somebody for it. Go figure.
What’s a project manager? Well, he chases down program milestones the way my neighbor’s kids herd cats - loudly and with little success.
So what’s the thrill in being a PM? You, more than anyone but the CEO, get to see the entire company, from end-to-end, and everything that happens within it. This is actually rather cool.
As PM you become familiar with all pieces of the value chain required to bring your product to market and make money. It’s been said that position determines perspective and in this case, the perspective of a PM is quite vast because the position is at the top of the heap… your product being the heap, of course.
What then, is the downside of being a PM, you ask? You get to see the entire company from end-to-end along with everything that happens within it. Some days it’s like an alimentary canal… all appetite at the front end, no clear idea about what goes on in the middle, and a odiferous aroma at the end.
It’s been said that ignorance is bliss, but the visibility a PM enjoys generally nullifies ignorance – unless of course he’s working at being ignorant. Not recommended for career length PM employment, by the way. While blissful ignorance may be highly prized in the mind of a stressed PM, in practice it is best left for happy hour ruminations irrespective of the insanity you may be facing at the moment.
Long story short, a PM’s life is diverse, intense, frustrating, and rewarding. And that may be before the first cup of coffee is drained on Monday morning and the Outlook calendar has reminded you of your 8 a.m. con call with the good folks building your widgets in Singapore. Ah, the life of a PM… gotta love it!
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