Product Management: The Dilemma; in 100 words or more
A friend of mine asked me jerry why did you transition into product management? and by the way, I am hearing the term for the first time… so please enlighten me.
I stopped for a while and I mumbo -jumboed the “premium okoto”(meaning nonsense in Nigerian pidgin ) that was in my head. I thought I sounded smart by explaining exactly what is in the diagram above.
On the contrary what I am getting to find out as I try to do my day to day job or rather learn my day to day job because I've been at it for less than a month and all I have done is take online classes and tutoring … is that product management is more about managing the creation of a solution .
From an outer perspective, one might think that the product manager role is one where you manage teams and lead different team members such as; designers, engineers, data analysts… etc. The reality however is that you are actually just a liaison between all these people that inspires and motivates them to solve issues and problems that have been identified either by you or by your boss.
So, where is the dilemma here? It is obviously finding your space and knowing what you are supposed to do. I for think that a product manager among many things is a communications specialist because you need to be able to communicate effectively with teams and customers if you will carry out your job well.
The daily itinerary of a PM is usually engulfed around putting out fires and inspiring teams to meet deadlines for product launch, carrying out meetings to get updates on milestones and tickets(tasks) from each member of the product development team, meeting with relevant stakeholders to either evangelize ideas for features (product)or give updates on product milestones.
For you to effectively know what you are to do as a PM especially if you are new at this, you should spend some time within your first 2 weeks of on-the-job asking questions and meeting team leads as well as your product owner. knowing what to do will save you a lot of stress and make you a better Liason.
By the way, I've always wondered if the PM role only flourishes in the tech space… ill wrote on that next week.
