Chapter 35. Product Management Then and Now
Occasionally in my work with technology product teams around the world, I run into product managers that are still practicing the role as it used to be defined back in the PC era of technology. These organizations are inevitably frustrated, as the role is not terribly effective and often not respected.
There are many possible reasons why these organizations have never moved forward. Perhaps the leaders are simply perpetuating what they learned many years ago. Perhaps the organization received âtrainingâ from one of the many non-technology firms that try to apply their models of the past to Internet-era companies. Perhaps the old role has been institutionalized in a formal corporate product development process.
In any case, after I explain the new role to the team, I find that it sometimes helps to highlight the key differences.
I think this probably works better in person, but I want to try this in written form. Let me say up front that this is a little bit exaggerated (but not much), to shine a light on the key behaviors.
Organization:
| Old: Marketing |
| New: Product (product management plus user experience design), a peer to technology and marketing |
Education:
| Old: MBA |
| New: Computer Science or User Experience Design |
Spends days:
| Old: Writing requirements documents |
| New: Working on product discovery/pursuing minimum viable product |
Learns about customer behavior:
| Old: With focus groups |
| New: With user testing and A/B testing |
Makes case for ...
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