Test-n-Tell.com - making product decisions

  Managing products is not easy. Especially in a growing company. When you need to deliver value to your customers, plan strategically, onboard new colleagues, and do customer research - it could be overwhelming and often could lead to chaos. Hence the role of product ops emerged to take on those challenges and empower product teams.

  Lately, I've noticed the increasing number of product management job ads in gaming companies. On one side, it's great to see product management continues to develop as a discipline and a growing number of companies embracing the role. On the other side, it's a bit worrying that certain industries that previously were considered artistic now hire product managers.

  Healthy competition is a good thing. It drives innovation and brings benefits to customers. However, at times a product team might get obsessed with their competitors which leads them astray.

  As a PM you always live in the future. Or so you should.  A product management job is the closest you can get to be a time-traveller. In fact, it's almost a permanent relocation to the future with occasional glimpses back to the present to make sure all goes according to the plan. 

  You don't see this bit of product management being covered extensively. We like to talk about building things, growing things and making things better. However, the word focus is a singular word and sometimes to make something great you need to let something else go. 

  Lately, I hear more and more questions about how to become a product manager . I guess people look at the average PM salary and it looks appealing. Maybe folks are exposed to PMs in their own organisation and they think they could do this job. However, before committing to the switch it’s useful to know what product management is and what it is not, to avoid disappointment.  Before we dive in it's important to note that product management could differ greatly between organisations so not everything below could apply. Product management is not about glory  All experienced PMs know: if something goes wrong - it’s your fault, if something goes well - it’s someone else’s praise. PMs rarely get recognition and always are responsible for success. That often comes as news to fresh PMs who thought they'll be "mini-CEOs" and single-handedly will make their product huge successes. In reality, though, the product is never done and even when you've just made something great

  I heard that somewhere and the phrase stuck with me. I guess many people would consider PM to be an interface to the engineering team. For the majority of business functions, an engineering department is kind of a black box. They send requests there and after a while, might get some features back (not necessarily in any way related to the things they've requested).