As a Product Manager, I want to be a Product Manager
I fell madly in love with Product Management: systems thinking, soft power, & responsibility for great software. A dynamic role to orchestrate a mess of activities molded into something valuable. That was magic and still is. Product Management ideals are dare I say, sexy.
I hopped on the Product bandwagon. I worked hard to re-brand, re-skill, and re-ignite. I knew that being a Business Analyst was a dead-end job. This was my ticket out. I jumped at any hackathon. I talked to every Product Manager I knew. I spent hours studying Product boot camp curricula and creating a side project to stretch my nascent skills…
…And one day, it finally happened! I was granted entry into Club Product Management. There was no looking back. Weaseling my way into the role was one of the hardest things I have ever done and the best career decision I ever made.
Now 7 years in, I struggle. I struggle with what I see Product Management becomes everyday compared to my expectations. I fantasize. I compartmentalize. I accept that a job’s just a job.
Marty Cagan’s Product Management ideal never became reality for me. I fall into Melissa Perri’s build trap everyday. And my black box of Product Management sure doesn’t look like Brandon Chu’s.
Now working as a Product consultant, I help many companies go through the motions:
- Moving Jira tickets up and down
- Greasing the development hamster wheel
- Status reports. Status reports. Status reports.
Feature factory manager. Agile-bastardization expert. Backlog fog guru. Whispering “that’s not technically feasible right now” into a stakeholder’s ear…
I know what autonomy is. I’ve heard of product discovery. Empowered teams sound fantastic. And I can imagine driving for outcomes to achieve a vision. My dream and reality co-exist with some artful cognitive dissonance.
Why? Because it’s easy. Being part of the problem is easy.
Change is hard. A company culture is an massive force to budge. Whole organizational makeups need to be adjusted. Buy-in is needed at the tippy top. This is the epic struggle. I still love what I do. Yet I strive to roll in grass that is greener.
This is the problem I have with the Product blog sphere and talking circuits. We can all detail how our Product Management systems should improve. Yet can we actually apply those to the places where we work? There’s the real problem space.
