What Does a Product Manager *Really* Do?
“I work as a Product Manager at a healthcare start-up.”
You’re at a party, and someone asks the dreaded question: What do you do for a living?
When you answer the question, the other person's eyes become bigger,and a puzzled look begins to appear on their face.
Oh oh. Wait for it… Here it comes again.
“What is a Product Manager exactly?”
You answer something along the lines of that you help build more valuable products. Then they ask more questions and conclude that come to the conclusion I don’t build anything myself. A mixed look of confusion and disappointment kicks in. This then is often followed up by a question along these lines: “How can you help deliver valuable products if you don’t actually build anything?”
Ouch. Fair question, even if it hurts a bit.
I’ve answered this question so many times that by now, I’ve gotten my story straight and know how to answer it simply and clearly.
What is a Product Manager?
Ever since I was a little boy, I have been going to the concert hall with my parents. I always would listen intently and study what was happening in the orchestra.
The conductor is the person who grabs all the attention and receives the applause, here’s something that few people know about orchestras:
“The great secret is that an orchestra can actually play without a conductor at all“— Joshua Bell
Just like an orchestra can make music without a conductor, a team can build a product without a Product Manager.
So why do teams have a Product Manager? Do they actually need one to deliver valuable products?
Before we answer that, let’s explore the history of music conducting. Covering a brief history of conducting is useful because there are many parallels between the job of a Product Manager and the conductor of an orchestra.
Making Music Without a Dedicated Conductor
Before 1820, most orchestras did not have a dedicated conductor. Conducting was a side gig bestowed on one of the instrumentalists who was part of the ensemble. Their main job was to play the instrument, and leading the ensemble was secondary.
Dedicated conductors started to become more mainstream as the orchestra grew. The larger the orchestra, the longer it takes for sound to travel from the back to the front. This delay may result in two instruments, say violins and drums, crashing together and bringing a potentially lovely piece of music to a grinding halt. Hence, a dedicated conductor who kept everyone synchronized became necessary as the orchestra grew.
Over the centuries, the conductor's role has evolved to be more than keeping the orchestra in sync. A conductor doesn’t make any music but helps the orchestra produce beautiful music.
A conductor may engage in the following activities for the orchestra to help deliver a unified and magnificent listening experience to the audience:
Curate and select a list of works to be performed by the orchestra.
Study and interpret the works to be performed and relay their vision to the orchestra. This may lead to adjustments in tempo, articulation, phrasing, and repetitions of sections.
Leading rehearsals to communicate artistic direction and polish the performance of the orchestra.
Leveraging non-verbal communication to unify and shape a live musical performance that serves as the artistic interpretation of the piece.
A conductor serves the music, the orchestra, and the composer. It is their job to help bring out the best music in a live performance for the audience to enjoy.
“Being a director or a conductor is a balance of many things. And to do it right is a very difficult tightrope to walk.” — Joshua Bell
How Do Product Managers Help Build Valuable Products?
“The conductor of an orchestra doesn’t make a sound. He depends, for his power, on his ability to make other people powerful.” — Benjamin Zander
A Product Manager doesn’t build any features but depends on his/her ability to help others deliver more value. A Product Manager is a servant leader of the product and the team. All the people the Product Manager works with usually don’t report to them. A Product Manager is hugely dependent on his/her ability to listen, influence and communicate with others in all layers of the organisation to be successful.
So, how does a Product Manager help deliver more value?
Apply focus. The amount of ideas, requests, and bugs that can be worked on any product at any given time always exceeds the capacity of the development team. The Product Manager must apply the appropriate focus so we work on the right things and don’t dilute the value of our product. In practice, this means saying no a lot and doing this in a way that keeps people happy. If you explain why you are saying no and it makes sense to the person asking, then over time, you will have to say no less frequently.
Set priorities. Even when you say ‘Yes’ to a feature, you cannot start working on it right away. Product Managers must devise a precise order in which features should be developed to maximize the value the product delivers to customers and the business.
Inspire and motivate teams. Great products are never built by a single person. Elon Musk, Steve Jobs and Jeff Bezos are visionaries who succeeded because they were able to inspire and elevate others to do great things together.
Get everyone to worry about building the right thing. If you think estimating how long it takes to build a feature is hard, think again. Figuring out whether something makes sense to build is even harder. It requires diligent experimentation and research, which often gets skipped in favor of talking about features or specifying in detail how they should work. People are overconfident in their ability to determine what is valuable for their customers by using nothing but their own imagination.
Keeping stakeholders happy and informed. Unhappy stakeholders can be infinitely distracting and derail all efforts to deliver value. Happy stakeholders will support you and help deliver more value.
However, the most important thing a Product Manager can do is to make delivering a valuable product a team effort.
Just like an orchestra can’t deliver a beautiful performance without the concerted effort of musicians, a great product never gets built without different individuals and teams closely working together.
A Product Manager supports and helps the team create value for customers and users and ensures we can capture that as value for the business. It is vital that they do not obstruct the teamwork necessary to deliver valuable products.
In the words of Joshua Bell:
“Good conductors know when to let an orchestra lead itself. Ninety percent of what a conductor does comes in the rehearsal — the vision, the structure, the architecture.” — Joshua Bell
Doing Product Management means, much like with an orchestra, you work with empowered teams who collaborate to deliver products of the highest possible value. The Product Manager is a servant leader who guides and supports the team in figuring out how to deliver a valuable, usable, and feasible product, not to dictate and command every step of the way.
The job of a Product Manager isn’t telling people what to do and giving them orders but making sure everyone is inspired to enlist and bring the Vision of our Product into reality together.
Just like a conductor helps listeners experience something majestic that stirs their emotions, it’s the job of a Product Manager to help the team shape a delightful and valuable experience for the users and customers of the product.
This is a brilliant description! And just like orchestra conductor, good product managers do not use authority all the time, but mainly influence and motivation and stories.
There is nothing so beautiful as the music that comes from masters of different instruments working together under the guidance of one. Even the conductor subjects himself to the originator/writer of the piece. Lovely way to picture this!