What Does A Product Manager Do?

Product management has always been essential to product development, but its name recognition and formalization have taken off over the past twenty years.

Despite increased awareness, the role remains ambiguous, often sparking debate – and, frankly, confusion – surrounding the role of product managers.

In this blog post, we explore the core responsibilities of product managers, differentiate the role from its adjacent functions, and outline best practices for early-in-career product managers.

What is a Product Manager?

Product managers are the connective tissue between internal and external customers, business objectives, and the technical organization. Product managers are responsible for understanding what success looks like, documenting it, and working with the technical organization to bring it to life.

Unlike design and engineering, which are well-established and relatively consistent across organizations, product management varies from company to company, shapeshifting depending on the domain and the business needs.

The Classics

Over the years, a few classical definitions of product management have gained popularity:

• Martin Eriksson's Venn Diagram: Product managers operate as the intersection between user experience (UX), technology, and business.

• Ben Horowitz's "CEO of the Product" Analogy: This analogy underscores the responsibility for a product's success without direct hierarchical control over teams.

What Does a Product Manager Do?

Product management responsibilities vary enormously by organization. For example:

• Enterprises: In an enterprise organization, product managers focus on high-level strategy, cross-functional coordination, stakeholder management, and project communication.

• Startups: In startups and smaller companies, product managers are more execution-oriented, involved in strategy and project execution and delivery – overseeing everything from vision to implementation.

Core Responsibilities

• Conduct user research and advocate for customer needs.

• Perform market and competitive analysis.

• Craft and articulate an impactful product vision.

• Align cross-functional teams and stakeholders.

• Prioritize product initiatives in alignment with business priorities.

• Create a central knowledge base.

• Communicate with stakeholders, including project progress and product training.

Is a Product Manager a Product Owner?

In Agile and Scrum-based organizations, product managers and product owners are distinctly different:

• Product Managers focus on overarching strategy, market positioning, and long-term vision.

• Product Owners work closely with development teams, managing the product backlog and defining sprint objectives.

Are these hard and fast rules?

Unfortunately, no. Even the responsibilities of product managers and product owners can vary depending on the organization:

• In non-Scrum organizations, a product manager may assume prioritization duties typically assigned to a product owner.

• The product owner may absorb strategic responsibilities in companies lacking a dedicated product manager.

Excelling as a Product Manager

Ruthless Prioritization

Product management is a strategic function. It's important to understand the value of each line of code your team writes, how that code aligns with the business's priorities, and, more broadly, what is best for the business.

Product managers must effectively balance customer needs, business objectives, internal and external stakeholders, and long-term priorities, including difficult tradeoffs, saying no, and ruthless prioritization.

Letting Some Fires Burn

Product managers' work hours and their teams are their most precious resources. How they allocate those resources is key to being a high-impact product manager who moves the needle for their business. Letting some fires burn (i.e., not immediately addressing everything that comes across their desk) is about learning what is essential and what isn't and ensuring they concentrate their resources on what is.

Developing Market and Organizational Acumen

Successful product managers thoroughly understand their company's business model, competitive landscape, and customer base. Deep domain expertise enables them to ask insightful questions and make informed decisions.

Empowering Teams Through Clear Communication

Rather than being a bottleneck, product managers should create and communicate a shared decision-making framework based on the business's objectives that enable teams to operate autonomously and move quickly.

Cultivating Influence Without Direct Authority

Since product managers rarely have direct managerial control, they must influence teams through persuasion, trust-building, storytelling, and understanding stakeholder motivations.

Building Resilience and Managing Tradeoffs

Product managers make decisions that do not satisfy all stakeholders. Effective product managers embrace tough tradeoffs, communicate them transparently, and maintain a pragmatic approach and level head in conflict resolution.

What Does a Great Product Manager Look Like?

Beyond functional expertise, top-tier product managers:

• Establish long-term product goals that meaningfully impact the business.

• Energize teams with inspiring narrative and passion.

• Smarly navigate organizational dynamics and stakeholder expectations.

• Communicate clearly across teams.

• Understand the macro position of their organization and incorporate it in everyday decision-making, resource allocation, and execution.

Conclusion

Many people argue the idea of product managers as "Mini-CEOs of their product" (see The Classics above) – arguing the phrase conjures images of all-controlling product managers with the final say across disciplines. The argument is valid because product managers rarely, if ever, have direct managerial oversight. Instead, their influence is indirect and earned through trust-building, follow-through, and track record. Because of this, a product manager's role often expands and evolves as they gain trust. Their remit expands along with their understanding of the macro position of their business. It's a fluid, high-impact position that, at its best, does create "Mini-CEOs," but only insofar as the product manager makes decisions from a high-level vantage point, considering the bigger picture, much like a CEO.