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How to be a GREAT Product Manager
My friend Saeed has written a wonderful series of articles on product management. In his latest post, he writes,
In my early product management jobs, I focused a lot on the process of product management. A CEO of a startup I worked for told me that my approach to product management was “very academic” in nature. He viewed himself as a “get it done by any means necessary” entrepreneur, while I viewed myself as a ”get it done right” product manager.I find many entrepreneurs are so focused on getting it done that they build a business that cannot support growth. As Saeed puts it, product managers ensure that we ”get it done right.”
Saeed continues,
The startup was a very sales/deal driven company, as many startups tend to be. Putting product management in place in such an organization is not easy. But having a process focus is very important for a product manager.
The "process of product management" is such an important distinction, isn't it? In a startup, almost everyone supports sales to one extent or the other but as Saeed points out, the product management job is to create repeatable products rather than one-time offerings.
The job of product management is a strange but wonderful intersection of business, technology, marketing, project, and process--all combined with deep market knowledge.
Great means different things at different times
Posted by
Ivan Chalif
at
2007-09-10 02:33 PM
Steve (and Saeed), you point out one of the bigger challenges that I see for PM's, which is how to be successful at companies of differing size and maturity. Being a great PM at a large company does not require the same skills as being a great PM at a startup. In fact, being great in one respect may make you crappy in the other.
I have been in interview situations where the hiring manager was looking for someone from a big company (Oracle, Sun, MSFT, etc) to fill a PM role at a company that had 20 people total, which was probably smaller than ONE of the PM teams at a large company. The product needs are significantly different at small and large companies and while the hirnig manager may be looking for someone who can replicate the PM process from the large company at the startup, that is likely a recipe for failure.
That's not to say that a PM from a large company couldn't be successful at a startup. Just that Product Management happens differently depending on the size of the organization.
I have been in interview situations where the hiring manager was looking for someone from a big company (Oracle, Sun, MSFT, etc) to fill a PM role at a company that had 20 people total, which was probably smaller than ONE of the PM teams at a large company. The product needs are significantly different at small and large companies and while the hirnig manager may be looking for someone who can replicate the PM process from the large company at the startup, that is likely a recipe for failure.
That's not to say that a PM from a large company couldn't be successful at a startup. Just that Product Management happens differently depending on the size of the organization.
Great PM articles
Thanks for the kind words. Below is a link to the series of articles you referenced.
http://tinyurl.com/ypk44x
Saeed