What I *actually* do as a Product Manager (in 2023) | Highlights and Annotations by Gistr.

This video explains the Product Manager (PM) role, its history, and daily tasks. PMs bridge the gap between engineering and customer needs, making crucial product decisions. The process involves defining problems, proposing solutions (PRD), securing buy-in, building MVPs, A/B testing, and launching. Becoming a PM requires strong communication, decision-making, leadership, and execution skills. While lucrative and impactful, it's demanding, requiring long hours and constant problem-solving. The video also promotes Career Foundry's PM program. This segment traces the historical evolution of the product manager role, starting from its inception at Procter & Gamble a century ago and highlighting its transformation into a crucial and high-paying function in modern tech companies. It explains how the role emerged from a need to understand customer wants and translate them into successful products. This segment clarifies the diverse interpretations of "product" within the tech industry, illustrating that a product can range from a significant feature launch to a minor UI adjustment like adding or removing a button, showcasing the breadth of a product manager's responsibilities. This segment provides a detailed overview of a product management program offered by Career Foundry, highlighting its features such as dual mentorship, career services, and a job guarantee with a tuition refund if unsuccessful in securing employment. It also emphasizes the program's comprehensive curriculum and its focus on practical skills development. Thank you to Career Foundry for sponsoring now. back to the video. So what does a product manager's life look like? Well our lives look like hell but PM secretly loved the heat. You know for the plot in the PM world there is nothing certain except for death and meetings. There is no time to work. So you gotta work in between meetings during meetings. during lunch. You got to become a master at prioritizing your never--ending to--do list and you've got to say no when everyone's trying to ask for your time. If you can't, this job isn't for you, Sorry, I was cleaning my table but generally my week looks like this product team means where we go through, progress priorities, problems, morning stand--ups with my engineers, which are 15 minutes long to find potential blockers coming up and there's always something new to ruin my day and a bunch of other meetings. you and your designer are best friends, y'all chat every day, y'all are jamming on Figma working on the next designs to hand over to engineers Designers are usually like oh my god what if we do all of these things and you're like oh that's really cute but maybe not now because engineers don't have a lot of time We meet with data and you talk about exactly at what point this product is a go What are your success metrics What are your guard rails? let's say you're building live streaming This section details the typical stages of product development, from receiving initial directives from executives to the final approval and execution phases. It explains the crucial role of the PRD (Product Requirements Document) and the process of navigating internal reviews and approvals before product development commences.This segment focuses on the methodology of creating a Minimum Viable Product (MVP) and utilizing A/B testing to validate product concepts before full-scale launch. It emphasizes the iterative "build-test-iterate" approach to minimize risk and maximize the chances of creating a successful product. According to Chloe, some of the key responsibilities of a product manager are: Making strong decisions: A great PM can make decisions the whole team can rally behind. They have a deep understanding of the product space and what users want, and they can clearly explain the rationale behind their choices. ( ) Being a great communicator: PMs need to communicate clearly and concisely, both in writing and verbally. They should be able to explain the jnknkln;n; "why" behind every decision and simplify complex situations. ( ) Being a great executor: While vision is important, PMs also need to be able to execute and help the team move faster . This includes unblocking people, organizing tasks, and making things happen. ( ) / Taking ownership: Product managers are responsible for the success of the product. When the product fails, it's their fault , but when it succeeds, it's the team's success. ( ) Doing everything it takes to launch the product successfully: This is a broad responsibility, but it essentially means that PMs need to be willing to do whatever is needed to ensure the product's success. () Apparently, HP was like, that's genius, bro. let's do it too. It was a revolution. There was a whole slew of events that happened. But basically, if you want to build successful products fast, you'll need someone to use every brain cell and their body to figure out the, who, what, why, where, how, while everyone else actually builds a thing, That is the fastest path. Sometimes it's a button, sometimes it's removing a button and sometimes it's placing that button somewhere else. So y'all will build the bells and missiles get the product marketing campaign ready and launch the thing to everyone else, which is literally just pressing a deploy button. And it's actually very anticlimactic. But then you start seeing the charts go up and you like, oh yeah, it's working. The reason we do it this way is that it would be very silly to have spent all year working on this all the way through just to flop by the end of it. know what people want. They can clearly explain why this over that. there's lots of clarity. direction, vision, this thing is gonna win and this person knows it. You want to be on their team. There's lots of other great traits, of course, but this one makes a PM stand out the most, I think some other great traits, behaviors, principles are one. You are a great communicator. You write, well you speak clearly and succinctly you explain the why behind every decision, you can draw very clear through lines, when things are really complicated. Like what exactly is happening here sift through the noise for me. You know how to adjust the elevation of detail based on whatever audience is in the room. You get all these crazy people in the room to debate, decide, commit together because lack of clarity gives the rash and nobody likes that. No, we don't. Well I'm drinking Aloe juice two you're very opinionated with good reason. This all comes down to time and expertise. Like when someone throws out a puzzling question at you you have an opinion on it you ould I be g And today is where I re-explain what I do as a product manager. And I will tell you how it really is. is where I re-expla You gotta have grit this is not an easy job products fail all the time and the execs can trust you like you can make decisions run with it and they don't have to check in on you very much you have everything under control number four you are a great executor I think this is way too underrated because visionaries get all of the credit but ultimately if you're cannot-access guy and ideas are worthless you're always helping the team move faster you're helping them get to 80 20 solutions you unblock people you document you get things organized you make things happen so should I be a PM I think it's so funny because I've had several software engineers slide into my DMS and they're like should I become a product manager and I'm like um I don't know you have a pretty sweet gig like you're getting paid the same if not more and you arguably have less work if you play your cards right don't ruin what you have because it's not a glamorous job you eat all the time like one of my directors had told me that before product fails it's your fault product succeeds it's the team's success someone's butt hurt you get feedback you swallow your pride you take it you resolve it and you move on you get reored you deliver the news you're understaffed oh you gotta do their jobs now and I have done a lot of people's jobs as a PM before and now and it's a lot of writing PRDS product strategy dogs and it's not up to date some engineers gonna whine to you and be like well it wasn't in the PRD it's a lot of work you're glued to your desk you are your desk me and my PM friends we're malnourished sleep deprived and out of shape and it's hard to take time off culturally there's like one of you and five to ten other engineers so if one of them take the day off they're fine people don't even notice but if you do who's gonna cover for you I will say I don't know if I can do this if I finally be become a mother there are not a lot of mothers in this profession interesting because this job isn't chill. dy for an office job. it's also a thankless job. Sometimes they do a lot of BS admin work like taking the notes or planning a social or doing expenses for other people You write a lot of updates for Sometimes they do a lot of BS admin work like taking the notes or planning a social or doing expenses for other people You write a lot of updates for people to poke into when you argue back and forth in hidden DMs and meetings that nobody sees. Sometimes they do a lot of BS admin work like taking the notes or planning a social or doing expenses for other people You write a lot of updates for people to poke into when you argue back and forth in hidden DMs and meetings that nobody sees. What are the biggest challenges faced by product managers, and how do they overcome them? How does the role of a product manager evolve within a company's growth trajectory? What are the essential skills and hjbvmh personality traits that define a successful product manager? What is the realistic career path for someone aspiring to become a product manager? How does the compensation for a product manager compare to other tech roles, and what factors influence it?