Makes Me Wonder
There is a recent article up on Marketing Profs that I’d like to briefly discuss. Particularly, this quote:
The product manager is generally responsible for ensuring that a product gets created, tested, and shipped on schedule and that it meets the specifications. This function is primarily internally focused, bridging Marketing and Development. This person generally has excellent technical expertise but rarely has the marketing expertise needed to bring a product to market.
While I do fall into the “technically savvy” group, this is a complete disregard of what product management is, when done true to form. Aside from the fact that it requires far more than “marketing expertise” to bring a product to market. This may be a bastardization of titles, or a lack of understanding - but I’m not sure.
The key thing missing here is that it’s the PM’s responsibility to gather feedback, parse it, craft a roadmap and execute that roadmap. The thing angering me most here is saying, essentially, product manager’s are nothing more than development managers.
The second thing completely wrong is saying that a PM is only there to “bridge the gap between marketing and development.” What is that about? A real PM knows it’s their job to pivot between Sales, Engineering, Marketing, Services, Management, Support, etc….
Why is this the case? Because a real PM understands they can’t be perfect at everything, and that people need information, and that good ideas can come from anywhere. They know their strengths within these functional areas, and will ensure they understand each group, at least, conceptually.
So, let’s be clear: a real, fundamental product manager does much more than take what geeks say and turn it into something copywriters can understand and fluff up. Bringing products to market requires a complete cross-functional effort, and a product manager or a product marketing manager should never believe that they alone have the full set of expertise required to do it all.
My personal philosophy is that a product manager acts as the proxy to the market. A product marketing manager speaks to the market, while a product manager listens to it. And I’m not the only one that thinks this.
December 20th, 2007 at 8:38 am
It’s a fairly common–albeit incorrect–view that product managers “only” prioritize requirements. In fact, many developers and execs are stumped by the question “Where do requirements come from?”
In every other business, product management is a strategic role. Sadly, in technology businesses, the role in often relegated to a completely tactical one primarily doing project scheduling and sales support.
But here’s the question: Who is planning for next year and the year after if execs waste product management on Gantt charts and product demos?
Thanks for championing the strategic role of product management!
December 20th, 2007 at 11:11 am
It looks like the marketingprofs article is focusing on one instance of Product Management. I am an Field Application Engineer turned Product Manager. I see my responsibilities to be a constant effort in multi-tasking - FA, Sales Engineering, Marcom, Product Managment etc.
To trivialize one aspect of it is… not a good idea.