Your weekly product management reading. Not too much, not too little, just right.
So, I am one of the co-founders of a community group for product managemnt called PM Fast Track.
At the moment, we are primarily a meetup-based group. During the sign-up process, we ask a question:
How do you define Product Management?
About 62.31% of all respondents basically “CEO of the product.”
(By the way, that's a BS stat. But, people who think that PMs are CEOs are really high.)
Hate to break it to you, but the PM is not the CEO.
At a big company like Yammer or Dropbox, you have stand-alone business development and sales teams. They make decisions about strategic partnerships. The heads of those other divisions even may tell you thing that need to be built.
At a small company or a less than 10-person startup, the PM is still not the CEO of the product. You maybe reporting to the CEO or to CTO. They are the real owners of the product and its business.
Not long ago, there was a popular medium post, comparing the product manager to a janitor.
You do as much of the dirty work as possible so everyone else doesn’t have to. This is one of the most important things you do because it means the whole team operates more efficiently. Sure, as a PM you’ll spend a lot of really fun and engaging time working with designers creating fancy mocks that solve difficult interaction problems, and yes you’ll get to go really deep into product testing to find interesting bugs in esoteric but important scenarios and you will get to craft product strategy that will touch the lives of millions (maybe even billions) of people and have lasting impact on the company that employs you, but at the end of the day you’ll also have to do a lot of work that no one else wants to do.
(emphasis is mine)
Honestly, that sounds like playing with fire, or walking the fine line between working hard and working stupid hard. As in being a bad manager who does not know how to prioritize.
Work smart, not hard.
I have talked to PMs who are pulling their hair out because they are overwhelmed at work (as the exerpt above alludes to). If no one wants to do the work, you’ve got a problem. You “doing the work no one wants to do” is a surefire way for you to really suck at your job and get fired (see prior week's newsletter about how you will suck in the beginning.)
Why are you overwhelmed? It's because you are too busy. What does that signal?
Well, product manager is (as defined by what you do) someone who:
Tells the team what to build next.
Helps the team understand why in a way that clearly ties to customer success and business success. (Read our friend Teresa Torres's blog on more about this.)
Build systems and tools to enable team members to work effectively and efficiently (or you can cheat and use good project management tools).
Can ruthlessly prioritize in ways that achieves results.
Prioritization is really hard. Really, really hard. And if you think you are good at it, then you probably suck.
It's not that we are inherently wired to get distracted by a shiny new idea. It's that PMs have to juggle demands among many stakeholders. So, you have to learn to understand what really matters, and then practice communicating these very clearly in a way that influence the roadmap.
Do these things well and you will be indispensable. You will be invincible.
Easier said than done. I know. So keep working at it and don't give up.
Silicon Valley and SF
September 9: Career Change: Transitioning to Product Management (Online).
September 10: State of Tech Education and Becoming a Better Developer (FREE). San Francisco.
September 12: Product Realization Group: 2014 Symposium & BBQ ($50). Sunnyvale.
September 18: How to move from Engineering to Product Management by Product School. San Francisco.
September 20: Dealing Effectively with Conflict by SVPMA. ($40 for non-members). Santa Clara.
September 24: Cloud meets Internet of Things ($25). San Francisco.
September 25: An Evening with Steve Blank ($15). Google HQ, Mountain View.
October 11: How Do You Improve Your Product Team’s Performance? (FREE). Los Altos.
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