Updated 5 April 2022

Product management... what a huge topic! Over the course of my career, I’ve worn many hats — engineer, tech lead, CTO, co-founder, product engineer and product manager, among others — but the product manager may be the most varied in terms of cross-functional scope. In this post, I interviewed a fellow PM to help describe what the discipline involves for the novice product person. Whether you’re just getting started or at several years into PM, hopefully there’ll be something for you!

What’s PM? A fellow PM explains

The other week I was speaking with my friend Sam Watts (fellow experienced PM) about product management and, as he generously took some time to share his thoughts, it occurred to me that there’s so much to the discipline and so much that I haven’t fully explored yet. We touched on many topics but here are some highlights that describe PM-in-a-nutshell:

• The PM is not the CEO of product
  • There’s a common misconception that the PM is the CEO of product. While this certainly was a novel way to think about product in 1998 (Horowitz), it’s less relevant in today’s product world
  • PMs are rather:
    • Facilitators for decisions to be taken
    • Communicators who impart the right level of information at the right time
    • Understanders of the problem but only facilitators of the solution
• There are different types of PM
  • The metrics-driven PM, particularly at companies where minute changes to a CTA can have huge impact (Facebook, Google, etc.)
  • The discovery-led PM, especially at startups where product differentiators can move the needle far more than any incremental change could
  • Related to this topic is Shreyas’ three senses of PM
• We need to make proxies for metrics when metrics aren’t available
  • Often at startups or new projects, we lack metrics to drive decisions. If this is the case, we should try to make suitable proxy metrics
  • For example, Rahul Vohra’s Product-Market Fit framework (built on Sean Ellis’s) looks at the answer to “how would you feel if you could no longer use the product?” in the search for the elusive PMF
  • We want to look for proxies that are highly correlated to our “needle” moving
• A PM facilitates the product strategy to be set
  • It’s the PM’s job to facilitate decision-making
  • Note, this does not mean you should decide on everyone else’s behalf
  • Instead, you should take various viewpoints into account and come up with options
  • In the process, you’ll have weighed up the pro’s and con’s, and have a recommendation for the primary decision makers (including e.g. the founder or CEO)
  • The best product managers can skilfully pitch the best option
• Communicating well is the minimum requirement of a good PM
  • PMs have to write, write and hone
    • If it’s an important document (e.g. PRD), there’ll be multiple iterations of it
  • Try to leverage your time by writing and having your content being read by many
    • The novice PM may find themselves repeating their findings with others individually
    • While some of this is unavoidable, good PMs scale their communication
• What are some challenges of a PM?
  • Helping define the vision
    • But not necessarily setting one! The vision must be consistent with the founding vision
  • Balancing accuracy and oversimplification
    • Often with technical products, a lot of nitty gritty needs to be left out to not derail the conversation
    • But in leaving out the details, we sometimes hide the complexity that stakeholders may not be aware of
  • Measuring outcomes and ROI of initiatives
    • Metrics can be scarce, so finding the right ones to focus on can be a challenge
    • ROI can be hard to measure or latent for certain initiatives (e.g. code maintenance)
• The PM’s 10x leverage: The key is to leverage time and look for the most impactful activities
  • We need to strategically choose where to allocate our efforts
    • Improving Amazon’s checkout process at the top-of-the-funnel could have a much larger impact than at the end
  • Shreyas’ LNO framework can be helpful in managing your time with high, medium and low-leverage tasks — you need to learn how to do low-leverage tasks badly or not at all!
• PM as the “API” to engineering
  • PMs should act as business’s interface with engineering
    • Doesn’t mean that there shouldn’t be interaction between the two; PM can be thought of as the hub
  • PMs should make the impact of engineering clear
  • PMs should celebrate the impact with the team
• PMs need to learn how to say “no” to things [Intercom]
  • But we must empathise and make sure to hear people out (saying “no” softly is an art!)
  • A “no” can take several forms: yes but not now
• We must be comfortable with the realities of a PM
  • PM is a lonely job, as Shreyas says
  • As Ken Norton once said about product managers, “Remember friend, nobody asked you to show up”
    • The organisation could technically survive without you
  • Others get praise and you should be more than ok with that!

Conclusion

...that’s product management in-a-nutshell! Of course, the above only scratches the surface of the PM discipline. Sam also recommended a Twitter meta-thread that sums up product management by Shreyas Doshi (product leadership at Stripe, Twitter, Google) that’s a good reference as any with respect to product management. In it, you’ll find pointers to what makes a product manager good great. Definitely make sure to check it out!

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