Becoming a Product Manager

- "The ambiguity of the product management role "is near to its essence." I hope you're excited about starting this course. Let's go ahead and dive right in. And by the end of this lecture, and hopefully be even more excited Does that excite you? If it doesn't, you can't be a product manager, you should probably leave. I'm kidding, but this Venn diagram pretty much sums up my entire existence. I also love graphs.

So product management is actually a pretty difficult role to define, concise, good explanations just by Googling it. Try Googling it right now, and their exact responsibilities change across different industries in different companies. and you have one set of responsibilities, you might have a completely different set of responsibilities at another company What we'll focus on here are the core tenets that make up product management.

The first and most important thing that you're actually not a manager of anybody. No one reports to you. because a product manager needs to continuously interact with a number of different people, get maximum collaboration from their engineers, and also the designers that they work with. Think about it for a second. If you wanted honest feedback from engineers and designers that you work with, but you're also their boss, do you think they're going to tell you if they have any disagreements with what you have to say? and acts as a communications hub, He hadn't worked with a product manager before.

He hadn't worked with a product manager before. Before I could answer, the other engineers said, Before I could answer, the other engineers said, that's the person that stops sales and legal that's the person that stops sales and legal from emailing you. from emailing you. (laughing) As a product manager, you're kind of a blocker slash enabler for engineers and designers. The communication and enabling aspect The communication and enabling aspect of product management is a very important one. Engineers are very good at engineering, Engineers are very good at engineering, and designers are very good at designing. So it's best if these people So it's best if these people spend their time doing what they're best at. spend their time doing what they're best at. While engineers focus on solving hard technical challenges, product managers are talking to various stakeholders, users, receiving feedback and looking at metrics to decide what things can be built next, and which of those things is most important and which of those things is most important and the best use of time.

and the best use of time. Have you ever used a product, either software or something physical, where many things about that product are really good, but then there's one small piece but then there's one small piece that's just really terrible? If there's something wrong with any product, you can blame the product manager. you can blame the product manager. Basically a product manager is someone who's responsible Basically a product manager is someone who's responsible for that product being successful or not. To recap, the product manager is many things. To recap, the product manager is many things. A communications hub, a prioritizer, A communications hub, a prioritizer, a researcher, a presenter, a researcher, a presenter, but most importantly they're responsible but most importantly they're responsible for the ultimate success of the product. So you're next question is probably, So you're next question is probably, all right, so what's a product? all right, so what's a product? Well, I'm glad you asked, Well, I'm glad you asked, because that's what we're going to talk about because that's what we're going to talk about in the next lecture.

in the next lecture.