Lemon #71. The
manager
While reading ‘Inspired’ from Marty Cagan, we learned about what the product manager does. This is what Marty says:
In many companies, especially older, enterprise companies, the product manager role has a bad reputation. What too often happens is that the company takes people from other organizational roles and they say, «We’re moving to Agile and we don’t need project managers or business analysts anymore, so we need you to be a product manager».
The honest truth is that the product manager needs to be among the strongest talent in the company. If the product manager doesn’t have technology sophistication, doesn’t have the business savy, doesn’t have the credibility with the key executives, doesn’t have the deep customer knowledge, doesn’t have the passion for a product, or doesn’t have the respect of their product team, then it’s a sure recipe for failure.
At one point, the product manager is responsible for evaluating opportunities and determining what gets built and delivered to customers.
Honestly, the reason why a product manager role is considered so important today by CEOs and VCs it’s because every business depends on customers. And what customers buy is your product. The product is the result of what the product team builds, and the product manager is responsible for what the product team will build.
When a product succeeds, it’s because everybody on the team did what they needed to do. But when a product fails, it’s the product manager’s fault.
Marty Cagan @ Inspired.
Jorge Moreno
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