Should a Product Manager be a generalist or a specialist?

Q: "Should a Product Manager be a generalist or a specialist?"

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Who comes to your mind when I throw out the following terms?

Hedge Fund Manager. Vice President. Batman. Magician. John Connor. Pyscho. FBI agent.

Christian Bale.

Bale is known to be one of the most versatile actors in Hollywood. He's famous for undergoing insane physical transformations and opting for a wide range of roles.

He somehow blends so seamlessly into the characters he plays that he becomes simply unrecognizable.

Now, there are a set of fundamentals that every movie actor requires to be successful.

Dialogue delivery. Timing. Nonverbal cues. Expression. Spacial awareness. Reacting naturally to surroundings. Co-star interplay. Knowledge of camera angles.

That's the basic toolkit for survival.

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And Christian Bale, of course, has command over these basics in spades.

However, once he gets a specific role, he has to sculpt his character through learning, conversations with the director & absorbing the script at a deep level.

This demands learning new skills & domain knowledge.

For example, Bale had to learn to play the drums for the Big Short.

He consumed several graphic novels to understand the nuances of Batman's dark character.

He had to read up religious scriptures for his role in Exodus.

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Similarly, IMHO Product Managers are generalists at heart.

They are able to wear different hats based on what the team needs at the time.

They are able to carry over fundamentals like framing user stories, prioritization, roadmaps & agile methods from one role to another.

The basic principles of user empathy apply across.

But when they take the reins of a product, PMs have to get knee-deep into the customer mindset & market they operate in.

Ex: A health tech PM would gain specialized knowledge on the state of healthcare in their local market while an incoming FinTech PM would have to get up to speed on government-imposed regulations & hurdles.

Thus, PMs, while being generalists, also have a certain propensity to specialize in areas that matter.

An effective PM will aim for necessary but sufficient depth in industry-specific knowledge & skill sets to ensure success for the product, business & overall team.

Naturally, this can be a bit intimidating.

PMs don't have answers to everything at the start and undergo a learning curve.

This can easily lead them into becoming a victim of Impostor Syndrome starting out.

I like what Bale says about this:

[“I wing it over a long period of time,” he continued. “There’s a lot of prep that goes into it, but that’s to give myself the confidence and I learn things very slowly, and so it just takes me a long time to get there.”]

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Generalist or Specialist? Just be versatile. Like Bale.