To an outsider, product managers (PM) are somewhat of a mystery. They are often described as the "CEO of the product," however, Julia B. Austin, Board Member and Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School, who taught the subject for over 4 years, thinks it's not a good comparison.
"As Martin Eriksson points out, 'Product managers simply don't have any direct authority over most of the things needed to make their products successful — from user and data research through design and development to marketing, sales, and support,'" she wrote. "PMs are not the CEO of product, and their roles vary widely depending on a number of factors."
"The best PMs I have worked with have mastered the core competencies, have a high EQ, and work for the right company for them," Austin said.
"Beyond shipping new features on a regular cadence and keeping the peace between engineering and the design team, the best PMs create products with strong user adoption that have exponential revenue growth and perhaps even disrupt an industry."
There are core competencies that every PM must have — many of which can start in the classroom — but according to Austin, most are developed with experience, good role models, and mentoring. Some examples of these competencies include:
- conducting customer interviews and user testing;
- running design sprints;
- feature prioritization and road map planning;
- the art of resource allocation (it is not a science!);
- performing market assessments;
- translating business-to-technical requirements, and vice versa;
- pricing and revenue modeling;
- defining and tracking success metrics.
"These core competencies are the baseline for any PM, and the best PMs hone these skills over years of defining, shipping, and iterating on products," she said. "These PMs excel at reflecting on where each of these competencies have contributed to the success or failure of their products and continuously adjusting their approach based on customer feedback."
A good PM may know the dos and don'ts of a customer interview, but the best PMs should have the ability to empathize with customers in that interview, tune in to their body language and emotions, and identify the pain points that the product or feature will address.
"A PM with a high EQ has strong relationships within their organization and a keen sense of how to navigate both internal and external hurdles to ship a great product," Austin said.
In earlier-stage companies, it's really important to know how involved the founder/CEO/CTO is in the product process.
"If they are deeply involved, the PM role may play more of a support role, to flesh out their ideas or validate concepts with customers, versus conceiving and driving ideas of their own," Austin explained. "This can be great fun for some PMs who enjoy partnering with founders and C-level executives and collaborating on the product evolution."
