The PM

After ten years of product management, it seemed like the right time to start jotting down some of what I have learned; aside from making me feel all wise and important, I plan to send my team-members to read this blog rather than feel like broken record, chuckle chuckle, hopefully other product managers will find some learning value in my words herein .

As my experience has been solely with Waves Audio, no doubt I have a somewhat narrow viewpoint, still I believe that the essence of being product manager is pretty much the same wherever you go, although the exact roles & responsibilities may differ.

As product managers, we get to take dreams and ideas, break them down into the very elements they are made of, and then plan how to combine them together into a big picture that will realize the dream. It is a challenging, endless work, and great challenges promise great failures and even greater accomplishments... you are in for a joyride :)

You will have to always see the big picture, understand if any given action brings the product closer or takes it farther away from the idea that sparked its development (no, there is no standing in place!), and at the same time dive into the finest resolution in order to grasp exactly how things work under the hood. As the PM, you need to make decisions. In order to make good decisions you need a full understanding of all related and affected aspects of your product. Never stop until you are certain your understanding is complete, and if you are not, you need to find out the missing pieces.

I have always favored the term product owner, as it reflects all of the above quite well. It is ours. We lead the group towards the product goals, bask in the glorious spotlight of success or shrink in the humiliating darkness of failure... with great power comes great responsibility.