A generalization of Product Managing pt1 - The work
Or a summary of my last 4 years of working as Product Manager and 3 more being a Project manager
Call me Chris
Okay so first thing first, there are several things that I would need to introduce before diving into the content. After all, strangers danger, and don’t believe anything you see online.
My CV can be summary as follows
4 YOEs being Product manager for tech companies
0-1 Companies
1-10 Company
Big corporation
3 YOEs being Project manager
Include 1 Google project in Vietnam
And other projects by US entities
Understand the industry and landscape of multiple domains firsthand
Here is my LinkedIn in case you haven't noticed yet https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-trinh-2b6341159/
Why now? What now?
If you have been around on this blog, you would likely see other stuff than Product managing, although I work the job I refrain from writing something relevant, for some reasons:
I don’t want just to be a Product manager, to begin with, I want to build my company in the next several years so PM-ing in me is only a stage.
I’m not a good teacher, I do the job but teaching isn’t a cup of tea for me.
Most importantly, I don’t have time.
Andddddddd, guess what, I have some time now. However, since the first 2 reasons still stand, I would write something quick only, hope this helps all the new or aspiring Product managers out there find their way.
This blog will have 2 parts, The first one is on Product manager work a generalization to simplify the work, and the skillset, expectations, etc. 2nd part would likely be the technical of a PM role since the role is best in the tech world.
Sources
This document is based on my experience and my learning over the years, mainly from
All the books I read, can’t name them all but ranging from business - to tech - entrepreneurship - PM-ING. You can find a pretty good list here. It’s not mine, but my reading list looks like this.
All the courses I took, namely AI Product Manager, Reforge, Entrepreneurship course, Micro Econ by MIT, Wharton Business Foundation, MBA Essential, the Product School, and Better Business.
Most of these are paid courses on Coursera. My go-to when it comes to learning
Some come from work as a training program (Company’s expense). Appreciate for being in good companies.
This is only PM relevant course, Technical (Code, Data…) courses will be listed in PT2
All my reading and YouTube videos, namely Lenny or LinkedIn voices like Dr Bart Jaworski, and Elena Verna.
The list is long so let's cut this here.
Delve into Product management
Let’s do a 5W 1H
What is a product manager?
Normally you would see something like this
But this is overly simplified, yeah, you are somewhere in that zone but this is similar to saying a CEO is doing Product (I make that comparison since CEO or CPO is 2 paths a product manager can aim for but those 2 jobs are different).
In an ideal state, a CEO is mostly a business strategy and a little product. A CPO is mostly a product strategy and a little business. Over-generalizing a work makes that even more confusing and to be honest more than often the PM job is misunderstood to even the person working the job.
The following would fit better, yes, it’s from Lenny.
To make this easier I would compare the Product manager to a Project manager, the 2 jobs I have experienced as a Project manager are usually a clearly defined role (and more common also for your reference)
Product owner is another similar role that is in between Project and Product. But the difference is in the structure model the team is running with, so that might be another story.
Me doing the 2 jobs, Product manager is the harder one, I left Project managing since it was boring and repetitive.
Where does a product manager work?
Okay so this is a tricky question that highlights the nature of product management, that mainly based on “Sync the people” in the diagram above
Depending on company policy, PM can do remote work, most of your time would be in meetings and collaborations occur in conference rooms, virtual meeting platforms, or collaborative workspaces. The meeting room can be split into a different part
Daily: Engage in team syncs, stand-ups, and task prioritization.
Weekly/Bi-Weekly: Participate in sprint planning, reviews, and retrospectives.
Periodically: Conduct strategy reviews, update roadmaps, and hold stakeholder meetings.
So yeah, even when chatting with customers, you would likely stuck in a meeting room somewhere, for the new Product manager or low-level one, you might want to have more meetings. More meetings mean more visibility and comment, right?
Dead wrong, once you have 30-40 hours a week just for the meeting (Yes, it’s me) you kinda wish you had an internet problem.
When does a product manager work?
This question can be answered on a Scrum team basis, to sum up, Agile Scrum is where you run with a Scrum team (dev, DA, Design..) in a 2-week manner.
Which is called a sprint, each sprint has some goals. E.g. release feature A in 2 weeks or finish the Back-end of feature A so the user can receive value.
I will go into detail with the “How” question below, but to summarize
Discovery - PM would likely need to finish understanding the user before a sprint (or multiple sprints for big feature/launch) and have every item for transfer in Grooming - which is usually a pre-kickoff event
Build- PM would then work to monitor the development and process of the GTM plan.
Track - Then track the success after launch. For a B2B SAAS, the time frame is usually 4-8 weeks after launch.
Iterate - Then come up with improvements based on data or new feature work by repeating the Discovery all over
GTM - Try to support sales team with your best to launch the product and bring that to the user
All of this should happen in 1 - 3 sprints time, I would recommend not fo higher for a feature.
Depending on the launch side, the new product likely takes you 6 months at least end to end for just the MVP.
Who is a product manager working with?
To name a few that I worked with before, to be called a “full-stacked” PM (My language here) you should work end-to-end meaning before-during-after launch. PMs I know mostly work in the middle part, sadly.
Customers: Understand their needs and pain points to build products that solve real problems.
Development Teams: Work closely with engineers and developers to translate product requirements into technical specifications and ensure timely delivery.
Designers: Collaborate on creating intuitive and user-friendly interfaces and experiences.
Marketing Teams: Plan go-to-market strategies, product launches, and promotional activities.
Sales Teams: Gather feedback from the field and ensure the product meets the market's demands.
Executives: Align product strategy with the company's overall vision and goals.
External Partners: Coordinate with vendors, third-party service providers, and other external stakeholders as necessary.
How does a product manager work?
This should be the longest answer, the devil is in the details.
Given a PM should have 4 core blocks of work (or Phases), not including the ad-hoc work here
Discovery
Build
Track & Iterate
GTM
Well yeah
I guess that is for today, hope this works, and see you in pt2 on the technicality of PMs, and delve deeper into the tech side that helps you survive in the Tech world.
Disclaimer tech is not required for a PM, but if you have it, your work gonna be 100% easier
Product manager is a job that I enjoy doing, it’s not easy work, but rather a challenging and often the most misunderstood role in tech, especially for non-product culture.
But it would get easier and better with time.
