Product Manager: The Master of Product Management

Is a Product Manager a jack of all trades?

I really like this visual depiction from Luke Gallimore. It shows how Product Managers sit at the nexus of key disciplines like design, tech & domain knowledge.

The idea for a PM is to aim for breadth & have sufficient depth to register meaningful conversations with each party & synthesize their efforts.

So, it is true that a PM needs to have basic understanding of the moving parts to make them all come together.

However, there's one misconception I'd like to clear out.

Being a jack of a lot of areas doesn't necessarily imply we are masters of none.

I see people reducing PMs to proxies that help departments talk to each other.

Some fail to realize that Product Management ITSELF is an essential craft that requires its own expertise.

PMs strategize, prioritize, orchestrate & most importantly, understand & represent the voice of the customer. That in of itself is a critical role that none of the other "specialists" can execute on their own.

Try making an Asana or Slack without a Product Manager. You'll probably end up with a potpourri of junk.

In other words,

A Product Manager is a jack of several trades, and a MASTER of Product Management.

Deal with it.

* mic drop *