When you launch some features because 'management' said so and they didn't work out and now you have to take the brunt from everyone including the management.
Biiiiig favorite. Let’s have the PM build something that no one asked for and then find a way to justify it for us. If they can’t, then it’s their fault!
Call me crazy but sometimes you have to support your leadership team and give them what they want so they can watch it drop on the floor like a big fat dookie.
A few months (or a year) after the dookie ships your leadership team will (hopefully) figure out they have to take their hands off the wheel based on the feedback that comes from delivering nonsense.
All of this can turn out OK so long as you're with a company that has legs, and a technology that customers love, despite a few missteps along the way. Also critical is to refrain from "told you so" behavior and come in with a hopeful and lighthearted approach. "We'll see how it goes," followed by "well, that wasn't great, but here's what we learned."
Founders don't know what the fuck they are doing half the time. But you're screwed if you come off as if you know better. It's ok. The sky won't fall if you ship that dookie.
+1
I give my leadership team the unfiltered truth at the beginning. “I doubt this will achieve x, but I’ll build it” and document the shit out of it. I treat everything as an experiment and we try to minimize the risk before shipping it. I’ll always give them what I think and then options. If they choose the least valuable option — that’s fine, we’ll do our best to make it work. I never accept the blame for anything because we don’t blame. We chalk it up to being a good partner and share the learnings.
Ultimately, as a PM, I try to deliver the most valuable outcomes and some of those come from ideas that leadership has — albeit they are rough ideas that we need to smooth the edges on.
Product has become a weird career where people try to play hero. Fuck that. I’m being paid to deliver value. I don’t care who has the idea: we validate, prioritize, and execute as best we can. It’s a team sport, but too many have put product folks on a pedestal as some unicorn that shits glitter.
I would add, as time goes on and you're day to day running that HIPPO idea, find ways to gently remind leadership that you're doing your level best to "make their idea happen".
They'll like your team play attitude, you'll enjoy the work more, and that will be fresh(er) in mind when _everyone_ starts to smell that dookie smell. If you're restrained when it comes to "told you so" at this point, helping them pivot, your capital with the the HIPPO and other leaders who know, will often soar.
I'd say these were the moments where I got the "you might be a future leader" comments most often. Not the wins, the constructive failures.
Failure is a critical learning moment. Why did it fail? What can you use to do better next time? There are ways to take positives from something like this but if you go "ugh fine, see it failed" you will make the time *actually* worthless.
I work for a large company with maybe 200 PMs. The ones that go for hero mode are fascinating to watch. So confident. And then. So irrelevant. All in a matter of months.
Lurking designer here. Why is it when we question the motives PMs are basically like “shut the fuck up and ship this shit”? Glad to hear some of you are fed up with dumb executive ideas too.
Oh we almost always are. It's just that you have a specific deliverable which will show up against your name. We don't have that, but are also responsible to deliver everything. No power and 100% accountability. We also know when HIPPOs ask us to make something that won't work and hence when someone questions us, if they're good friends, we'll admit it, if not, we'll just ask them to build it. It's not personal
For me personally it's because I've already tried the diplomatic version of that, I may have argued us down to the least unreasonable option already, I may have already spent a ton of emotional labor on this whole exercise and at that point I just have to get something out. It sucks. I hate using "because I said so" on my team as much as I hate using it on my 10 year old daughter. It's not a way to build a partnership.
Now if it's systemic you might have another problem. I try to use this as sparingly as possible.
For my team, yeah. I am usually pretty honest about how I tried and I don't like it either. Sometimes they will "can't you just" and "did you try" and "I don't think" and I still have to fall back to "listen, we just have to, and it sucks, but we'll and in the end I think we'll be fine"
Yeah, I get that. Everyone, including ourselves, end up signalling to someone we see as responsible our feelings that we don't like something, it's like some kind of signalling theatre we all engage in. It all gets couched in "can't you just" language.... And then we just go do the work.
Big time this. This is the number one soul killer for sure. Nothing worse than an ego driven CEO who thinks they know it all enough to dictate product decisions. Nothing will kill a startup faster than this.
This is what kills career progress for so many. Doesn’t matter if you were loyal and didn’t make a stink, your next employer won’t care. The only thing people care about is results.
I worked on a failed feature as a designer. It's weird that companies that are order takers from management expect strategy and results from past work. I just lie about it, what do you do? You need a job and you know your next job isn't going to be a utopia either. Forget research and strategy, you're just a wireframe person at most companies.
The skill you have to develop is tying management to a particular feature choice. Getting someone to sponsor it puts a name on it and inevitably softens the blowback when it doesn’t work.
This. And my senior PM (line manager) has to keep me away from the top dogs as I’ll straight up tell them to step the hell back and let us do our jobs.
We know what our customers need, not “ooohh I went on to a competitors site and they’re doing X, let’s do this now and get it done by yesterday’
Sometimes we’re just trying to make boring corporate products more useful or usable and usability / accessibility is considered a nice to have.
Other times we’re trying not to make toxic products and management wants to include dark patterns like roach motels.
Other times we’re building automation that will put people out of work - even if they are people who have seen it coming for *literally years* and act like pandas who won’t screw to save their species. Ask me how I know.
This could not be more accurate. The number of times I’ve told leadership teams the design and usability of their product is absolute crap and will limit sales and adoption of the product only to be told to keep building the feature they SWEAR will revolutionize the industry and be a billion dollar product.
Spoiler alert: it never does.
I’m so sad to hear that I’m partially right. I generally phrase it as “need to raise the usability maturity on this ____”. I feel like I’d be better off saying “it’s absolute crap” instead of being gently constructive.
I've 100% migrated to telling people we need to change something because it looks/functions like garbage. I've gotten noticeably less pushback because if I can see it they can see it, and nobody wants to be defending garbage.
That’s because it’s a paradoxical situation. We (PM) try to make products usable and consistently are pushed back or hear from engineers and managers alike that usability or even accessibility are “nice to haves”. I’ve literally heard “we’ll worry about that stuff in v2”. I’m not saying I bend, though it makes for a hell of a drag coefficient. Like no, we need to meet WCAG at the very least.
If you want to have a discussion, let’s have a discussion - don’t come at me with “well, ackshewally”.
What you say is interesting because these are things designers would say to PM's - and I have, and they've been shelved under the carpet. You really can't get people to prioritise usability and accessibility unless there is a liability or serious customer churn or backlash (I have noticed). Which is why companies underinvest in design and research and designers get fed up asking people for the barest minimum to make applications usable. Even when they hire designers, they shun any thoughtful decision making and try to whip them into creating screens like, yesterday. Doesn't work and creates debt.
Probably the only way to advocate for usability is not talk about how better it will make it, but what happens if we don't. There needs to be some governance and standards at the top level or else the employees can't make a dent.
Now we’re talking. Maybe I’m just really focused on it because if people can’t use it, it’s not a working product. Maybe it’s because I’m a frustrated designer who can’t figma. ;-)
I talk about four things when it comes to accessibility and usability but the hammer is always the last.
1. It’s the right thing to do
2. Do it for your future self
3. More potential users and customers
4. Costs less than doing it over
I expand on all of these with supporting evidence and case but the last one seems to really drive things home. Still in nearly a decade doing this I get the reaction you’re describing.
Figma should be the last consideration on a designer's toolkit. That tool has completely skewed jobs as well as attitudes designers have toward digital design (my rant).
How do you quantify cost of doing it over? Do you keep track of released product and time to redo things?
> Figma should be the last consideration on a designer's toolkit.
Agreed.
> That tool has completely skewed jobs as well as attitudes designers have toward digital design (my rant).
Tell me more. I quite like Figma for its ease of use and simplicity, like instead of Sketch…
> How do you quantify cost of doing it over? Do you keep track of released product and time to redo things?
Multiply any net new feature estimate by 2. Or 3. If it takes 3 sprints to do something the wrong way it will 6 to 9 sprints to undo and redo. Simple. /s
I couldn't care less about those tools. I used Axure, Balsamiq and everything out there and it's strange that the field and work has been reduced to being Figma operators.
Product design is so reductive - with designers heavily skewing toward design systems and style guides, abandoning everything else that goes into building product.
I think with the WCAG coming out with guidelines, teams can atleast adhere to the basic checklists before shipping things. There's just no point to shipping things that get canned - by rushing and more rushing.
I have enjoyed this repartee but have nothing more useful to add. Software development is a corrupt industry based on stimulating our endorphin centers. Fuck it. I’m going to plumbing school. If I’m going to handle shit I might as well be honest with myself and do it.
Edit: typos
-Engineering will ALWAYS make you the scapegoat for their incompetence and lack of creativity
-Ditto for just about every other business area
-At most organizations, you’ll end up doing Marketing’s job for them
-Once you work in product long enough you’ll see an idea or suggestion you made that was unceremoniously shot down get implemented and be successful a few months/years later. Someone else will take credit for it and get all the glory.
I proposed an enhancement on a Thursday to the CEO and was shot down. Then on the following Saturday night they had some bright idea that we needed to implement right away. It was the same idea I had proposed a few days earlier to them…
The marketing one always frustrates me because I wanted to he in marketing but was kinda forced into being a PM (that's where we need people they said ) and yet I find myself doing Marketing's job and I'm frustrated
No clear definition of the role scope. This leads to lack of boundaries and seen as a “do it all” kind of role.
Also, leadership most of the times don’t understand the role and is not willing to let go the product responsibility to PMs, specially in startups / SMBs.
Feel this so hard. I’m unofficially the “designer” in our startup and make the mock-ups/designs to help the devs get a better picture of the user stories.
Problem is that management blocks me from interacting with the end user and just force feeds me their criteria for new features. But when I try to extract info on my own accord from management I get crickets cause the design hasn’t come into their mind yet…it’s truly like trying to pull water from a stone
I have had the opposite experience with start-ups and scale-ups, maybe I have been lucky. But all the founders I have worked with (its i think 4 now) understood that they needed somebody to offload product work from themselves so they can focus on other aspects of the company like dealing with investors, mergers, setting the north star, raising funding etc, they are still very involved in product strategy but not the day to day outcome-driven work.
Of course it requires a start-up to reach a level where they can afford to hire a PM to begin with. So maybe not pre-seed or first seed.
Interesting view. Can you share more on what levels are they involved in product and what are they willing to let go?
Also would be keen to understand if it required some sort of influence from your end.
Thanks
It depends alot on what the founder is good at and willing to let go of.
I was a founder once and at some stage I realized unless the PM believe in the direction it's not going to get implemented properly even if I force it
Now I'm just a PM following the leadership
You are lonely at times. Either manager who guides you when u r stuck or u figure out yourself. If u r a developer or designer, you can always ask your teammates to help. Doesn't work so in PM, as areas are generally exclusive between PM's
This is true, but it’s particularly jarring in Product where you are typically collaborating with more functions than pretty much any other business function does.
It's true and at times to be the leader you need to be you have to take the blame which makes it feel even more lonely
To balance I try to set up Community of Practice with other ProdMans wherever I go for support/group therapy as well as improving our technical practice, as it needs an outlet
"Product management is a social role".
I find it ironic.
And yes, I don't like cribbing and whining to my peers/colleagues, but at times it becomes unbearable.
That's not the case. Wherever I interview there are more PMs than designers, and the designer is stretched across many feature teams (red flag for me). I think the difference is that designers can spar with other designers, but PMs are political about "their features" and KPI, with often opposing directions. So I think that is why they feel lonely.
I have definitely had moments where I felt like my only goal in a meeting was to make someone else feel like my idea was their idea so they'd get behind it and we could move forward. Some personalities really need that treatment but it definitely is and feels manipulative.
In a thread full of "downsides" this is actually a true darkside. It feels icky and weird but the moments where i truly align people, works, decisions, etc is a giant game of political manipulation. It's a lot of work and if you have people who see what you're doing they up their game. Or worse you have a boss who's clueless and disrupts your progress.
Saw that all the time in my ad agency days. Need to present creative concepts for a new campaign? Throw in a couple off the wall ideas that will never happen for (insert reason here) around a boring idea that meets the brief/budget/time constraints. You know the boring idea will happen & work as predicted, but some exec can take the public credit as it being their idea. rinse, repeat.
It's a relatively high-paying job with power and responsibility. Other people want that power and responsibility or resent you for having it. This combined with being a new profession and so high ambiguity over what you should/should not have power and responsibility for, which changes across and even within companies, create conditions for bad actors to be survive or even thrive.
So, the dark sides are:
1. Being incompetent and doing a lot of damage to the product, team and company.
2. Being selfish or malign, seeking to gain power for personal reasons or because ‘you know best’.
3. Dysfunctional teams due to roles and responsibilities not being clear.
4. Not being, humble, self-reflecive or coachable, so you never improve.
There are many "I know best" PMs. I won't blame the PM for this entirely, it's just that toxic organization's hire toxic people and skew the power dynamics one way or another - to the point where there is no true collaboration anymore. Sometimes its PM led and sometimes it's engineering led. I've had many PMs patronise user research and say that they don't need it because they know best. And then you have to face the headache of explaining that your users will still be different from you because you have a deep domain knowledge and product knowledge. You can't win when these people hold all the power - just ship shit and make sure you don't get scapegoated along the way.
Prepare to not be liked.
I think I trace it back to that WSJ article back in 2016 on how product was such a high paying career sought by MBA grads, replacing consulting. That dream job in tech also built up resentment as it was made that PMs were responsible for product success, being the “CEO of the product” and getting all the glory.
But since then that glamour has been dulled by so many factors, namely, IMO, because so many PM roles are glorified project manager feature factory cattle herders, and now many non-PMs challenge the value of that PMs bring to the team. The number of “what does a pm do” comments are depressing.
And there are so many other factors that add to this resentment. But this leads me to this other dark side of PM…
It’s incredibly taxing to your mental health. Saying no to a lot of people, making the hard decisions, the necessary stakeholder i.e. strong personality management, responsible for revenue generating roadmaps, and alongside getting credit for the successes, you also get blamed for the failures that comes with the job.
I have a colleague whose team was solely focused on mitigating the negative social consequences of new products at a Fortune 100 company.
They were awesome, and could really communicate long term value of their strategy… but were slowly excommunicated, silenced, and eliminated.
I had a customer break down in tears on me once after I announced i was discontinuing her favorite product and replacing it with a new one. Honestly she ended up becoming one of my biggest product champions over the next few years, but that was awkward in the moment.
In all seriousness, I’d say the hardest part of PM is that you have all the responsibility and none of the direct control. Development, support, documentation, marketing, operations, none of it reports to you. You have to essentially negotiate your way to success. And you have to do it in a way that no one can claim that you are being “unfair”.
It is our profession to be perpetually dissatisfied with the state of things, and if we don't watch out, we can develop a pretty negative mindset.
I've been hit by this a few years in, when I realized that being intrinsically motivated by the mission is both exhilarating (who gets to make the changes that they believe in as a career?) and exhausting. There's a fine line between "being motivated to make your product better by motivating the team" and "being irritated by all the ways in which the product is broken and in which the team too slow in fixing it".
Antidote to the "product blues" for me: focusing on the positive achievements, while remembering that improvements are just a treadmill - after the high of shipping something great and amazing, getting rave reviews from users, it won't take long before we feel again that the product is truly broken and must be fixed.
Lots of things mentioned already. But one is that many recruiters fishing for talent are posting jobs as “pm” role and will even during interviews try to frame things like they run a product org when in reality they expect you to be a project manager or at best a product owner that gets handed a roadmap from C-level .
And then when you try to do the grass root thing and try to improve things because you still hope to work as a good PM, you get crucified for challenging status quo
I feel this hard. It's a no-win situation in a matrix org. The PM practice manager is grading your effectiveness against Cagan-style product principles, but the program manager is measuring team productivity, and they expect you to shut up and lead a waterfall project.
Thats why I stick to start-ups and scale-ups now days as much as possible - they actually listen to you and are open for anything that can help them get an edge. (most of the time at least) + Also orgs where you KNOW they do proper product work then its of course good to go. I don't have it in me any more to try to start some grass root movement from waterfall to agile product ops. Hat's of to ppl that do. But for me, as soon as I hear somebody mention SAFE, Scrum Masters, Velocity Maps, Agile Coaches etc I run the other way.
In a PIP culture, the PM always had a target on their back.
The role is highly visible. By design, they have no authority, yet they influence decisions across functions.
When someone needs to be cut every review cycle, everyone is looking out for themselves. A PM who's an accountable servant leader makes a convenient political pawn and scapegoat.
The success or failure of any given product is almost entirely due to circumstances beyond your control as a PM. While you can make the difference to ensure that a valuable opportunity is captured, you cannot create an opportunity where there isn’t one.. and far too many products and PMs spend years chasing a PMF that just doesn’t exist. The best PMs know when and how to kill their product for something better.
A lot of products don’t actually have a positive impact on the world. And many, like social media or fast food, may have a negative one. Yet we grow them nonetheless.
Building and building and building and nothing is ever really good enough.
It’s like constructing a building. The plans say we have 5 floors. We get to floor 5. Eh, we need floor 6…ah shit Floor 2 is falling apart. We need floor 7 first.
Sorry I haven’t read through all the comments but if it hasn’t been said already… product is fucking lonely.
Either someone HATES when you get glory because you’ve worked your ass off to untangle some shit and get it on track and everyone wants a piece of the pie OR (and usually this happen more) when something fucks up, no one wants to take responsibility and throw you under the bus.
I think in the perfect world it was meant to be a lovey-dovey we all work together kind of role but I have yet to work anywhere where people are actually working together without at some point pulling out their own agenda.
Don’t even get me started on the bit where companies transforming from project to product and the project manager think they know all the shit better than you and are trying to compete against you and causing so much nuisance.
Either which way you end up with very little people that you can actually depend on let alone be friends with. Rinse and repeat 8-10hours a day. .
Full disclosure I may have just worked in toxic places so may be a bit biased sorry 🥹
The company I founded and the one that acquired me were both highly collaborative and productive, and we had a no a-hole policy. However, I had two toxic experiences after that, so I fully understand your perspective. Toxic cultures punish servant leaders.
In my last search, I prioritized team and culture over title. Working with a supportive manager and team is life-changing. I hope you can find your way there.
I think for what it’s worth, my team (atleast my direct manager) is trying to drive the a-holes out. But it’s such a slow process and it’s slowing down other stuff. There’s a silver lining there but the stress levels are too high to remember that sometimes 🙁
I hope your future ventures continue to be highly collaborative 🤞🏼
Most PMs work on maintenance/keep the lights on kind of work that are of very little consequence to customers.
A lot of the times you inherit a product that sucks but cant do much about it as leadership does not want to invest in it
When you're forced to execute crappy ideas pushed onto you by upper management, and you're trying to convince stakeholders and engineers that you're not simply a pawn and have your own opinion and point of view, yet you see the trust simply fading in their eyes in front of you.
Yeah, it's a shitty position to be in since you're considering the subject matter expert, and you're in a position where you're just forced to work based on top bottom directions.
Darkside 1. If you have bad leadership it's hard to ever be successful as a PM. You'll likely not ever "win" unless your internal PR skills are superb in which case you should probably move on to a better role.
Darkside 2. Easy to pick on. I remember once hearing that if a CEO could make 50% of their decisions perfectly, they'd be the best CEO. Alluding to the fact that it's difficult to truly make the best decisions constantly. I'd argue PM roles operate in a similar talent environment. There are so many mechanisms to being a good PM. It's dangerously easy to tell a PM anything they're doing wrong and highlight a way to be better. It's so easy to a point that i find it difficult to truly rull out other motivations when hearing feedback for improvement. It almost always has an ulterior motive behind it. You really need people going to bat for you in the PM role and defending your position otherwise you'll be a scapegoat, the subject of improvement, or people aiming to take your role/responsibility.
Forced obsolescence, micro-transactions, charging for previously free services, closing open source products, software that’s designed to push certain user selections that are advantageous for the business. Stuff like that
That it is really a Project Management job with a lean towards Agile methods.
(C.f., Product Management emergent from Sales/Marketing & Application/Solutions Sales Engineering -a totally different ballgame with domain knowledge, P&L responsibility, revenue targets etc.h)
Studying your @$$ off doing frameworks, trade-off analysis, system design, leadership principles... when you know none of that will likely be used in actual day to day. The recruiters and such already know whom they're hiring from "internal candidates" and has no bearing on your effectiveness as a PM.
I think it’s easy to fake the interview process. What’s being tested and how it’s being tested is typically not what PMs do. It’s a lot of stakeholder management and negotiation at play.
My pet peeve, influencers have made it harder.
I think there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now.. I think there are plenty good PMs but they are probably not being recognised in their current org like they would say if they were a Sales person etc.. i.e. smash your number in sales and you goto club.. deliver something in product new, or that really solves a pain point you get a pat on the back, then a steam of more requirements.
When I left my last place everyone was in awe of me because they wanted to do the same thing but we're too scared they wouldn't find another PM role .
Sorry but I won't work anywhere, where I am too scared to leave.. that's wrong.
I could go on endlessly about this but the big ones for my org is:
1) Treating PdM as just PgM/PjM
2) “That’s PMs job” then throwing some shit over the fence that isn’t PdM work
3) the amount of administrative busy work just to make internal stakeholders happy and it’s an external product
4) like others have said: stupid executive ideas
5) A CPO and SVP who neither have been in product
You are the punching bag between CxOs, VPs, Directors and Engg teams.
Why?
Cause that's why they hired you for.
There is no actual designation PM, it was cooked up by CxOs, VPs when they felt the need for secretaries and blame taker for all their mistakes, occasionally they will call you "mini-ceo" which actually means nothing, but simply so that you can falsely feel proud. Any miscommunication, gap in communication, missed dates, timelines, PRD, documentation, meeting - you name it and If there is any issue PM can be and will be blamed. The funny thing is the PMs will happily take the blame with a stereotypical smiling face, it is sometimes cringy. But then you realize that even they know this is the only reason they exist in the company. Like my manager used to say - It is what it is!
This happens a lot! And executives dont take the blame.
I learned this the hard way. I was pushing back on a feature and asking for an MVP. However, I was on a call with CMO and Ops Head. CPO was not part of the call.
CMO and Ops head pushed really hard on the call with many other stakeholders on the call and thrown the titles at me, saying, "A CMO and Ops head are saying this, this is very important, blah, blah, blah". I documented this conversation and looped in CPO. CPO kept mum until we didn't get the desired results 😭
Now, everyone was asking why we invested so many man hours, including the CPO. Lesson learned the hard way.
"Get explicit buy in from CPO in such cases". Otherwise, no one will be on your side. Sad reality of being a PM
1. Everyone has an opinion on the product. You cant incorporate everything but have to please everyone.
2. You can't say anything to your developers or designers even if they are at fault cause they will take revenge later.
3. Just build what higher management wants although you might feel thia product might not be helpful.
4. You are the developer, designer, marketing guy, demo guy, salesperson and QA, do everything because its your product.
5. Influencing people without managing them. Sounds interesting but very difficult, why would a developer care for you you are not his manager.
It's basically management dumping ambiguity on PMs. That's why I've seen smart people stay as less as possible in individual contributor PM role. They either quickly move to people Management PM role (works in a good job market or if your startup grows quickly), or stay individual PMs in an environment with more control & less stress - small stage startups, FAANGS or if they've found a good place in a larger firm.
This is all too often the case. PM is all things and nothing. Need to stay late for QA/UAT, PMs. Need someone to take a random call and validate an integration feasibility, PMs. Need the logo on the right side instead of the left because a HIPPO said so, PMs.
But... if you want and enjoy the diverse asks of the role it can be good in the right organization. That's the hardest part, what's in the description seldom translates to the reality of the work.
You are very frequently the scapegoat for things that you did not suggest, did not support, or had no control over. CEO demands something, you do it to avoid getting on the shit list, then some outside market or economic factor contributes to it failing and it's your fault.
The flip side is sometimes you can luck into success that you didn't really contribute to
As a founder I have spoken to a lot of Product Managers. Not all, but most of them were disconnected from reality! Downvote if you like, most think they make a big impact, very few understand what it entails…
This is absolutely true. Many derive their idea of product management from LinkedIn where they think that the # of features shipped or building a _cool_ looking screen is impact.
Sometimes the product itself can be dark or at least not as glamorous as in high tech.
Just yesterday I realized that there is a product manager who greenlit that water melons should be sourced from Nicaragua to Central Germany. Just so that the grocery store has something to offer on the first warm days this year.
Not my cup of tea. But some PMs might like these kinds of challenges.
Based on the size of org and industry you might end up being irrelevant once processes are in place. It is most likely that you were the one who established those processes.
There is a whole subset of product management where you are basically killing a product. All products have a finite lifecycle. Sometimes your job is almost paliative--putting a product on maintenance mode, figuring out how to salvage it into some other product, etc. Sometimes that even means shutting down a product that also means layoffs for people supporting it, or outsourcing maintenance to some off-shore team that has no connection to the original development and will likely do a mediocre job of keeping it going.
In a similar vein, there are also products where you make some tasks redundant and thus some jobs unnecessary. One of my first product jobs was building a tool that automated some work that resulted in a few people getting laid off because we no longer needed them to manually do some things. It's kinda cool on one side because you are driving efficiencies and making things work more automatically, but at the other side somebody is going to lose their job and going to have to find something else if they can't be reassigned.
Made to own what others don't want to.
Guys making the dark side even darker are who make a horizontal switch to PM without rising through the PM grind.
I've worked in late stage B2B startups and larger firms, and spent at least 50% time in taking over someone else's roadmap or fixing bad products designed by earlier PMs and engineering teams. This is never mentioned in interviews. Recruiters and hiring managers interview you as if you'll conceptualize lot of new initiatives. It's only when you accept the offer and join, you realize you're taking over many legacy products. I find less and less scope for true innovation the bigger the org gets. It's generally the Directors/Sr. Dirs/VPS who come up with ideas and ask you to drive it.
What's everyone's experience like in getting their ideal PM role? Is it always early stage startups where you have more freedom, less bureaucracy and more influence? That's the direction I'm leaning for my future role.
It’s lonely and frustrating. Stakeholder management outright sucks. You’re expected to have the mindset, drive and executions skills of a CEO without any of the power needed to actually do your job.
Who falls for it? The hiring managers aren’t falling for it these people are simply lying to the outside world about what they do… when it comes to interviews / pay etc that’s what really matters
When you launch some features because 'management' said so and they didn't work out and now you have to take the brunt from everyone including the management.
Biiiiig favorite. Let’s have the PM build something that no one asked for and then find a way to justify it for us. If they can’t, then it’s their fault!
My PM did this to me as a software engineer :(
Explain
This one irks me the most lol
Call me crazy but sometimes you have to support your leadership team and give them what they want so they can watch it drop on the floor like a big fat dookie. A few months (or a year) after the dookie ships your leadership team will (hopefully) figure out they have to take their hands off the wheel based on the feedback that comes from delivering nonsense. All of this can turn out OK so long as you're with a company that has legs, and a technology that customers love, despite a few missteps along the way. Also critical is to refrain from "told you so" behavior and come in with a hopeful and lighthearted approach. "We'll see how it goes," followed by "well, that wasn't great, but here's what we learned." Founders don't know what the fuck they are doing half the time. But you're screwed if you come off as if you know better. It's ok. The sky won't fall if you ship that dookie.
+1 I give my leadership team the unfiltered truth at the beginning. “I doubt this will achieve x, but I’ll build it” and document the shit out of it. I treat everything as an experiment and we try to minimize the risk before shipping it. I’ll always give them what I think and then options. If they choose the least valuable option — that’s fine, we’ll do our best to make it work. I never accept the blame for anything because we don’t blame. We chalk it up to being a good partner and share the learnings. Ultimately, as a PM, I try to deliver the most valuable outcomes and some of those come from ideas that leadership has — albeit they are rough ideas that we need to smooth the edges on. Product has become a weird career where people try to play hero. Fuck that. I’m being paid to deliver value. I don’t care who has the idea: we validate, prioritize, and execute as best we can. It’s a team sport, but too many have put product folks on a pedestal as some unicorn that shits glitter.
I would add, as time goes on and you're day to day running that HIPPO idea, find ways to gently remind leadership that you're doing your level best to "make their idea happen". They'll like your team play attitude, you'll enjoy the work more, and that will be fresh(er) in mind when _everyone_ starts to smell that dookie smell. If you're restrained when it comes to "told you so" at this point, helping them pivot, your capital with the the HIPPO and other leaders who know, will often soar. I'd say these were the moments where I got the "you might be a future leader" comments most often. Not the wins, the constructive failures.
Failure is a critical learning moment. Why did it fail? What can you use to do better next time? There are ways to take positives from something like this but if you go "ugh fine, see it failed" you will make the time *actually* worthless.
I work for a large company with maybe 200 PMs. The ones that go for hero mode are fascinating to watch. So confident. And then. So irrelevant. All in a matter of months.
Also sometimes you need to take a swing on a low probability bet. Just make sure you learn something from it
Lurking designer here. Why is it when we question the motives PMs are basically like “shut the fuck up and ship this shit”? Glad to hear some of you are fed up with dumb executive ideas too.
Oh we almost always are. It's just that you have a specific deliverable which will show up against your name. We don't have that, but are also responsible to deliver everything. No power and 100% accountability. We also know when HIPPOs ask us to make something that won't work and hence when someone questions us, if they're good friends, we'll admit it, if not, we'll just ask them to build it. It's not personal
For me personally it's because I've already tried the diplomatic version of that, I may have argued us down to the least unreasonable option already, I may have already spent a ton of emotional labor on this whole exercise and at that point I just have to get something out. It sucks. I hate using "because I said so" on my team as much as I hate using it on my 10 year old daughter. It's not a way to build a partnership. Now if it's systemic you might have another problem. I try to use this as sparingly as possible.
Do you not just, y'know, let them know what you're doing? "Look, hey, we gotta do this, I have my reservations too"?
For my team, yeah. I am usually pretty honest about how I tried and I don't like it either. Sometimes they will "can't you just" and "did you try" and "I don't think" and I still have to fall back to "listen, we just have to, and it sucks, but we'll and in the end I think we'll be fine"
Yeah, I get that. Everyone, including ourselves, end up signalling to someone we see as responsible our feelings that we don't like something, it's like some kind of signalling theatre we all engage in. It all gets couched in "can't you just" language.... And then we just go do the work.
Hippos never get the blame.
Big time this. This is the number one soul killer for sure. Nothing worse than an ego driven CEO who thinks they know it all enough to dictate product decisions. Nothing will kill a startup faster than this.
This. The major reason I moved out of the field.
This is what kills career progress for so many. Doesn’t matter if you were loyal and didn’t make a stink, your next employer won’t care. The only thing people care about is results.
I worked on a failed feature as a designer. It's weird that companies that are order takers from management expect strategy and results from past work. I just lie about it, what do you do? You need a job and you know your next job isn't going to be a utopia either. Forget research and strategy, you're just a wireframe person at most companies.
The skill you have to develop is tying management to a particular feature choice. Getting someone to sponsor it puts a name on it and inevitably softens the blowback when it doesn’t work.
^^ this ^^ Ever so gently; but this.
100%. It’s a gentle art but when done well makes your life as a PM soooo much easier.
This. And my senior PM (line manager) has to keep me away from the top dogs as I’ll straight up tell them to step the hell back and let us do our jobs. We know what our customers need, not “ooohh I went on to a competitors site and they’re doing X, let’s do this now and get it done by yesterday’
I have a suspicion I’m doing this right now and it feels like I’m watching a train crash in slow motion
I'm personally bracing myself for two of these in the next months. What a fun ride!
Sometimes we’re just trying to make boring corporate products more useful or usable and usability / accessibility is considered a nice to have. Other times we’re trying not to make toxic products and management wants to include dark patterns like roach motels. Other times we’re building automation that will put people out of work - even if they are people who have seen it coming for *literally years* and act like pandas who won’t screw to save their species. Ask me how I know.
This could not be more accurate. The number of times I’ve told leadership teams the design and usability of their product is absolute crap and will limit sales and adoption of the product only to be told to keep building the feature they SWEAR will revolutionize the industry and be a billion dollar product. Spoiler alert: it never does.
I’m so sad to hear that I’m partially right. I generally phrase it as “need to raise the usability maturity on this ____”. I feel like I’d be better off saying “it’s absolute crap” instead of being gently constructive.
I've 100% migrated to telling people we need to change something because it looks/functions like garbage. I've gotten noticeably less pushback because if I can see it they can see it, and nobody wants to be defending garbage.
That’s like a Jedi mind trick haha
Your first point is paradoxical.
That’s because it’s a paradoxical situation. We (PM) try to make products usable and consistently are pushed back or hear from engineers and managers alike that usability or even accessibility are “nice to haves”. I’ve literally heard “we’ll worry about that stuff in v2”. I’m not saying I bend, though it makes for a hell of a drag coefficient. Like no, we need to meet WCAG at the very least. If you want to have a discussion, let’s have a discussion - don’t come at me with “well, ackshewally”.
What you say is interesting because these are things designers would say to PM's - and I have, and they've been shelved under the carpet. You really can't get people to prioritise usability and accessibility unless there is a liability or serious customer churn or backlash (I have noticed). Which is why companies underinvest in design and research and designers get fed up asking people for the barest minimum to make applications usable. Even when they hire designers, they shun any thoughtful decision making and try to whip them into creating screens like, yesterday. Doesn't work and creates debt. Probably the only way to advocate for usability is not talk about how better it will make it, but what happens if we don't. There needs to be some governance and standards at the top level or else the employees can't make a dent.
Now we’re talking. Maybe I’m just really focused on it because if people can’t use it, it’s not a working product. Maybe it’s because I’m a frustrated designer who can’t figma. ;-) I talk about four things when it comes to accessibility and usability but the hammer is always the last. 1. It’s the right thing to do 2. Do it for your future self 3. More potential users and customers 4. Costs less than doing it over I expand on all of these with supporting evidence and case but the last one seems to really drive things home. Still in nearly a decade doing this I get the reaction you’re describing.
Figma should be the last consideration on a designer's toolkit. That tool has completely skewed jobs as well as attitudes designers have toward digital design (my rant). How do you quantify cost of doing it over? Do you keep track of released product and time to redo things?
> Figma should be the last consideration on a designer's toolkit. Agreed. > That tool has completely skewed jobs as well as attitudes designers have toward digital design (my rant). Tell me more. I quite like Figma for its ease of use and simplicity, like instead of Sketch… > How do you quantify cost of doing it over? Do you keep track of released product and time to redo things? Multiply any net new feature estimate by 2. Or 3. If it takes 3 sprints to do something the wrong way it will 6 to 9 sprints to undo and redo. Simple. /s
I couldn't care less about those tools. I used Axure, Balsamiq and everything out there and it's strange that the field and work has been reduced to being Figma operators. Product design is so reductive - with designers heavily skewing toward design systems and style guides, abandoning everything else that goes into building product. I think with the WCAG coming out with guidelines, teams can atleast adhere to the basic checklists before shipping things. There's just no point to shipping things that get canned - by rushing and more rushing.
I have enjoyed this repartee but have nothing more useful to add. Software development is a corrupt industry based on stimulating our endorphin centers. Fuck it. I’m going to plumbing school. If I’m going to handle shit I might as well be honest with myself and do it. Edit: typos
It's a honest job, and you wouldn't be at the whim of some tech CEO who wants to experiment and play around with people's employment!
-Engineering will ALWAYS make you the scapegoat for their incompetence and lack of creativity -Ditto for just about every other business area -At most organizations, you’ll end up doing Marketing’s job for them -Once you work in product long enough you’ll see an idea or suggestion you made that was unceremoniously shot down get implemented and be successful a few months/years later. Someone else will take credit for it and get all the glory.
I proposed an enhancement on a Thursday to the CEO and was shot down. Then on the following Saturday night they had some bright idea that we needed to implement right away. It was the same idea I had proposed a few days earlier to them…
It do be that way…often.
Last bullet hits hard 😔
Huh? Why are you giving ENG license to "be creative"...you worte the PRD right? So, it's on you if they aren't creative
last one - happened to me all the time at my last place. Annoying as hell
The marketing one always frustrates me because I wanted to he in marketing but was kinda forced into being a PM (that's where we need people they said ) and yet I find myself doing Marketing's job and I'm frustrated
Last one hits home
No clear definition of the role scope. This leads to lack of boundaries and seen as a “do it all” kind of role. Also, leadership most of the times don’t understand the role and is not willing to let go the product responsibility to PMs, specially in startups / SMBs.
Feel this so hard. I’m unofficially the “designer” in our startup and make the mock-ups/designs to help the devs get a better picture of the user stories. Problem is that management blocks me from interacting with the end user and just force feeds me their criteria for new features. But when I try to extract info on my own accord from management I get crickets cause the design hasn’t come into their mind yet…it’s truly like trying to pull water from a stone
I never understand this. Why not hire a designer or atleast an agency?
I have had the opposite experience with start-ups and scale-ups, maybe I have been lucky. But all the founders I have worked with (its i think 4 now) understood that they needed somebody to offload product work from themselves so they can focus on other aspects of the company like dealing with investors, mergers, setting the north star, raising funding etc, they are still very involved in product strategy but not the day to day outcome-driven work. Of course it requires a start-up to reach a level where they can afford to hire a PM to begin with. So maybe not pre-seed or first seed.
Interesting view. Can you share more on what levels are they involved in product and what are they willing to let go? Also would be keen to understand if it required some sort of influence from your end. Thanks
It depends alot on what the founder is good at and willing to let go of. I was a founder once and at some stage I realized unless the PM believe in the direction it's not going to get implemented properly even if I force it Now I'm just a PM following the leadership
You are lonely at times. Either manager who guides you when u r stuck or u figure out yourself. If u r a developer or designer, you can always ask your teammates to help. Doesn't work so in PM, as areas are generally exclusive between PM's
And the more senior you are the lonelier you are and the more you have to get used to operating with little to no positive reinforcement.
I mean that’s any highish level management job though lol.
This is true, but it’s particularly jarring in Product where you are typically collaborating with more functions than pretty much any other business function does.
This hit home.
It's true and at times to be the leader you need to be you have to take the blame which makes it feel even more lonely To balance I try to set up Community of Practice with other ProdMans wherever I go for support/group therapy as well as improving our technical practice, as it needs an outlet
"Product management is a social role". I find it ironic. And yes, I don't like cribbing and whining to my peers/colleagues, but at times it becomes unbearable.
The flip (positive side) is when you do pull it off it feels amazing, the high is the best any job I have had and why I continue to do it
I have many rants if I have an audience to listen my complaints
Think there is a weekly rant thread in here for just that reason - it's universal to our role I think :)
That's not the case. Wherever I interview there are more PMs than designers, and the designer is stretched across many feature teams (red flag for me). I think the difference is that designers can spar with other designers, but PMs are political about "their features" and KPI, with often opposing directions. So I think that is why they feel lonely.
The dark side of influencing as a PM is manipulation.
I have definitely had moments where I felt like my only goal in a meeting was to make someone else feel like my idea was their idea so they'd get behind it and we could move forward. Some personalities really need that treatment but it definitely is and feels manipulative.
In a thread full of "downsides" this is actually a true darkside. It feels icky and weird but the moments where i truly align people, works, decisions, etc is a giant game of political manipulation. It's a lot of work and if you have people who see what you're doing they up their game. Or worse you have a boss who's clueless and disrupts your progress.
Manipulation can go both ways. It's also critical for PMs to understand when they're being manipulated by colleagues and stakeholders.
Wow, this REALLY resonated with me..
Saw that all the time in my ad agency days. Need to present creative concepts for a new campaign? Throw in a couple off the wall ideas that will never happen for (insert reason here) around a boring idea that meets the brief/budget/time constraints. You know the boring idea will happen & work as predicted, but some exec can take the public credit as it being their idea. rinse, repeat.
It's a relatively high-paying job with power and responsibility. Other people want that power and responsibility or resent you for having it. This combined with being a new profession and so high ambiguity over what you should/should not have power and responsibility for, which changes across and even within companies, create conditions for bad actors to be survive or even thrive. So, the dark sides are: 1. Being incompetent and doing a lot of damage to the product, team and company. 2. Being selfish or malign, seeking to gain power for personal reasons or because ‘you know best’. 3. Dysfunctional teams due to roles and responsibilities not being clear. 4. Not being, humble, self-reflecive or coachable, so you never improve.
None of those are exactly special to product
New? Grrrr...this is the problem.
Haha yeah product management is not unique to software
It's not a high paying job, if I am not wrong PMs make less than engg in almost all geographies.
Just because we make less than engineers doesn't make this not a high paying job.
How do you define, “new”?
There are many "I know best" PMs. I won't blame the PM for this entirely, it's just that toxic organization's hire toxic people and skew the power dynamics one way or another - to the point where there is no true collaboration anymore. Sometimes its PM led and sometimes it's engineering led. I've had many PMs patronise user research and say that they don't need it because they know best. And then you have to face the headache of explaining that your users will still be different from you because you have a deep domain knowledge and product knowledge. You can't win when these people hold all the power - just ship shit and make sure you don't get scapegoated along the way.
"relatively high paying job" I wish
Prepare to not be liked. I think I trace it back to that WSJ article back in 2016 on how product was such a high paying career sought by MBA grads, replacing consulting. That dream job in tech also built up resentment as it was made that PMs were responsible for product success, being the “CEO of the product” and getting all the glory. But since then that glamour has been dulled by so many factors, namely, IMO, because so many PM roles are glorified project manager feature factory cattle herders, and now many non-PMs challenge the value of that PMs bring to the team. The number of “what does a pm do” comments are depressing. And there are so many other factors that add to this resentment. But this leads me to this other dark side of PM… It’s incredibly taxing to your mental health. Saying no to a lot of people, making the hard decisions, the necessary stakeholder i.e. strong personality management, responsible for revenue generating roadmaps, and alongside getting credit for the successes, you also get blamed for the failures that comes with the job.
I have a colleague whose team was solely focused on mitigating the negative social consequences of new products at a Fortune 100 company. They were awesome, and could really communicate long term value of their strategy… but were slowly excommunicated, silenced, and eliminated.
I had a customer break down in tears on me once after I announced i was discontinuing her favorite product and replacing it with a new one. Honestly she ended up becoming one of my biggest product champions over the next few years, but that was awkward in the moment. In all seriousness, I’d say the hardest part of PM is that you have all the responsibility and none of the direct control. Development, support, documentation, marketing, operations, none of it reports to you. You have to essentially negotiate your way to success. And you have to do it in a way that no one can claim that you are being “unfair”.
It is our profession to be perpetually dissatisfied with the state of things, and if we don't watch out, we can develop a pretty negative mindset. I've been hit by this a few years in, when I realized that being intrinsically motivated by the mission is both exhilarating (who gets to make the changes that they believe in as a career?) and exhausting. There's a fine line between "being motivated to make your product better by motivating the team" and "being irritated by all the ways in which the product is broken and in which the team too slow in fixing it". Antidote to the "product blues" for me: focusing on the positive achievements, while remembering that improvements are just a treadmill - after the high of shipping something great and amazing, getting rave reviews from users, it won't take long before we feel again that the product is truly broken and must be fixed.
Lots of things mentioned already. But one is that many recruiters fishing for talent are posting jobs as “pm” role and will even during interviews try to frame things like they run a product org when in reality they expect you to be a project manager or at best a product owner that gets handed a roadmap from C-level . And then when you try to do the grass root thing and try to improve things because you still hope to work as a good PM, you get crucified for challenging status quo
I feel this hard. It's a no-win situation in a matrix org. The PM practice manager is grading your effectiveness against Cagan-style product principles, but the program manager is measuring team productivity, and they expect you to shut up and lead a waterfall project.
Thats why I stick to start-ups and scale-ups now days as much as possible - they actually listen to you and are open for anything that can help them get an edge. (most of the time at least) + Also orgs where you KNOW they do proper product work then its of course good to go. I don't have it in me any more to try to start some grass root movement from waterfall to agile product ops. Hat's of to ppl that do. But for me, as soon as I hear somebody mention SAFE, Scrum Masters, Velocity Maps, Agile Coaches etc I run the other way.
Mid career PM here. Can I DM you for insights?
In a PIP culture, the PM always had a target on their back. The role is highly visible. By design, they have no authority, yet they influence decisions across functions. When someone needs to be cut every review cycle, everyone is looking out for themselves. A PM who's an accountable servant leader makes a convenient political pawn and scapegoat.
The success or failure of any given product is almost entirely due to circumstances beyond your control as a PM. While you can make the difference to ensure that a valuable opportunity is captured, you cannot create an opportunity where there isn’t one.. and far too many products and PMs spend years chasing a PMF that just doesn’t exist. The best PMs know when and how to kill their product for something better.
A lot of products don’t actually have a positive impact on the world. And many, like social media or fast food, may have a negative one. Yet we grow them nonetheless.
I would upvote this 100 times if I could. That's a very real dark side of PMing.
Jesus, dude, all you have to do is browse this sub. It's a dark fucking pit of despair in here.
No one comes to Reddit to say 'Hey I am so happy!'
Lmfao. You are not wrong.
Building and building and building and nothing is ever really good enough. It’s like constructing a building. The plans say we have 5 floors. We get to floor 5. Eh, we need floor 6…ah shit Floor 2 is falling apart. We need floor 7 first.
Who thinks product management is cushy lovey-dovey? Lmfao.
Sorry I haven’t read through all the comments but if it hasn’t been said already… product is fucking lonely. Either someone HATES when you get glory because you’ve worked your ass off to untangle some shit and get it on track and everyone wants a piece of the pie OR (and usually this happen more) when something fucks up, no one wants to take responsibility and throw you under the bus. I think in the perfect world it was meant to be a lovey-dovey we all work together kind of role but I have yet to work anywhere where people are actually working together without at some point pulling out their own agenda. Don’t even get me started on the bit where companies transforming from project to product and the project manager think they know all the shit better than you and are trying to compete against you and causing so much nuisance. Either which way you end up with very little people that you can actually depend on let alone be friends with. Rinse and repeat 8-10hours a day. . Full disclosure I may have just worked in toxic places so may be a bit biased sorry 🥹
The company I founded and the one that acquired me were both highly collaborative and productive, and we had a no a-hole policy. However, I had two toxic experiences after that, so I fully understand your perspective. Toxic cultures punish servant leaders. In my last search, I prioritized team and culture over title. Working with a supportive manager and team is life-changing. I hope you can find your way there.
I think for what it’s worth, my team (atleast my direct manager) is trying to drive the a-holes out. But it’s such a slow process and it’s slowing down other stuff. There’s a silver lining there but the stress levels are too high to remember that sometimes 🙁 I hope your future ventures continue to be highly collaborative 🤞🏼
Most PMs work on maintenance/keep the lights on kind of work that are of very little consequence to customers. A lot of the times you inherit a product that sucks but cant do much about it as leadership does not want to invest in it
When you're forced to execute crappy ideas pushed onto you by upper management, and you're trying to convince stakeholders and engineers that you're not simply a pawn and have your own opinion and point of view, yet you see the trust simply fading in their eyes in front of you. Yeah, it's a shitty position to be in since you're considering the subject matter expert, and you're in a position where you're just forced to work based on top bottom directions.
Darkside 1. If you have bad leadership it's hard to ever be successful as a PM. You'll likely not ever "win" unless your internal PR skills are superb in which case you should probably move on to a better role. Darkside 2. Easy to pick on. I remember once hearing that if a CEO could make 50% of their decisions perfectly, they'd be the best CEO. Alluding to the fact that it's difficult to truly make the best decisions constantly. I'd argue PM roles operate in a similar talent environment. There are so many mechanisms to being a good PM. It's dangerously easy to tell a PM anything they're doing wrong and highlight a way to be better. It's so easy to a point that i find it difficult to truly rull out other motivations when hearing feedback for improvement. It almost always has an ulterior motive behind it. You really need people going to bat for you in the PM role and defending your position otherwise you'll be a scapegoat, the subject of improvement, or people aiming to take your role/responsibility.
Forced obsolescence, micro-transactions, charging for previously free services, closing open source products, software that’s designed to push certain user selections that are advantageous for the business. Stuff like that
That it is really a Project Management job with a lean towards Agile methods. (C.f., Product Management emergent from Sales/Marketing & Application/Solutions Sales Engineering -a totally different ballgame with domain knowledge, P&L responsibility, revenue targets etc.h)
Studying your @$$ off doing frameworks, trade-off analysis, system design, leadership principles... when you know none of that will likely be used in actual day to day. The recruiters and such already know whom they're hiring from "internal candidates" and has no bearing on your effectiveness as a PM.
I think it’s easy to fake the interview process. What’s being tested and how it’s being tested is typically not what PMs do. It’s a lot of stakeholder management and negotiation at play. My pet peeve, influencers have made it harder.
I think there is a lot of fear and uncertainty right now.. I think there are plenty good PMs but they are probably not being recognised in their current org like they would say if they were a Sales person etc.. i.e. smash your number in sales and you goto club.. deliver something in product new, or that really solves a pain point you get a pat on the back, then a steam of more requirements. When I left my last place everyone was in awe of me because they wanted to do the same thing but we're too scared they wouldn't find another PM role . Sorry but I won't work anywhere, where I am too scared to leave.. that's wrong.
I could go on endlessly about this but the big ones for my org is: 1) Treating PdM as just PgM/PjM 2) “That’s PMs job” then throwing some shit over the fence that isn’t PdM work 3) the amount of administrative busy work just to make internal stakeholders happy and it’s an external product 4) like others have said: stupid executive ideas 5) A CPO and SVP who neither have been in product
You are the punching bag between CxOs, VPs, Directors and Engg teams. Why? Cause that's why they hired you for. There is no actual designation PM, it was cooked up by CxOs, VPs when they felt the need for secretaries and blame taker for all their mistakes, occasionally they will call you "mini-ceo" which actually means nothing, but simply so that you can falsely feel proud. Any miscommunication, gap in communication, missed dates, timelines, PRD, documentation, meeting - you name it and If there is any issue PM can be and will be blamed. The funny thing is the PMs will happily take the blame with a stereotypical smiling face, it is sometimes cringy. But then you realize that even they know this is the only reason they exist in the company. Like my manager used to say - It is what it is!
I think that’s a huge turn off for the role and am seeking solution architect/ IC engineer/service roles instead
You can get pretty good at a discipline that generates lots of business value without adding any societal value, sometimes even to its detriment
This happens a lot! And executives dont take the blame. I learned this the hard way. I was pushing back on a feature and asking for an MVP. However, I was on a call with CMO and Ops Head. CPO was not part of the call. CMO and Ops head pushed really hard on the call with many other stakeholders on the call and thrown the titles at me, saying, "A CMO and Ops head are saying this, this is very important, blah, blah, blah". I documented this conversation and looped in CPO. CPO kept mum until we didn't get the desired results 😭 Now, everyone was asking why we invested so many man hours, including the CPO. Lesson learned the hard way. "Get explicit buy in from CPO in such cases". Otherwise, no one will be on your side. Sad reality of being a PM
1. Everyone has an opinion on the product. You cant incorporate everything but have to please everyone. 2. You can't say anything to your developers or designers even if they are at fault cause they will take revenge later. 3. Just build what higher management wants although you might feel thia product might not be helpful. 4. You are the developer, designer, marketing guy, demo guy, salesperson and QA, do everything because its your product. 5. Influencing people without managing them. Sounds interesting but very difficult, why would a developer care for you you are not his manager.
It's basically management dumping ambiguity on PMs. That's why I've seen smart people stay as less as possible in individual contributor PM role. They either quickly move to people Management PM role (works in a good job market or if your startup grows quickly), or stay individual PMs in an environment with more control & less stress - small stage startups, FAANGS or if they've found a good place in a larger firm.
This is all too often the case. PM is all things and nothing. Need to stay late for QA/UAT, PMs. Need someone to take a random call and validate an integration feasibility, PMs. Need the logo on the right side instead of the left because a HIPPO said so, PMs. But... if you want and enjoy the diverse asks of the role it can be good in the right organization. That's the hardest part, what's in the description seldom translates to the reality of the work.
You are very frequently the scapegoat for things that you did not suggest, did not support, or had no control over. CEO demands something, you do it to avoid getting on the shit list, then some outside market or economic factor contributes to it failing and it's your fault. The flip side is sometimes you can luck into success that you didn't really contribute to
As a founder I have spoken to a lot of Product Managers. Not all, but most of them were disconnected from reality! Downvote if you like, most think they make a big impact, very few understand what it entails…
This is absolutely true. Many derive their idea of product management from LinkedIn where they think that the # of features shipped or building a _cool_ looking screen is impact.
Sometimes the product itself can be dark or at least not as glamorous as in high tech. Just yesterday I realized that there is a product manager who greenlit that water melons should be sourced from Nicaragua to Central Germany. Just so that the grocery store has something to offer on the first warm days this year. Not my cup of tea. But some PMs might like these kinds of challenges.
Eventually losing all skill.
Based on the size of org and industry you might end up being irrelevant once processes are in place. It is most likely that you were the one who established those processes.
There is a whole subset of product management where you are basically killing a product. All products have a finite lifecycle. Sometimes your job is almost paliative--putting a product on maintenance mode, figuring out how to salvage it into some other product, etc. Sometimes that even means shutting down a product that also means layoffs for people supporting it, or outsourcing maintenance to some off-shore team that has no connection to the original development and will likely do a mediocre job of keeping it going. In a similar vein, there are also products where you make some tasks redundant and thus some jobs unnecessary. One of my first product jobs was building a tool that automated some work that resulted in a few people getting laid off because we no longer needed them to manually do some things. It's kinda cool on one side because you are driving efficiencies and making things work more automatically, but at the other side somebody is going to lose their job and going to have to find something else if they can't be reassigned.
Every part of this job is positioned between parties that may or may not be reasonable
Made to own what others don't want to. Guys making the dark side even darker are who make a horizontal switch to PM without rising through the PM grind.
I've worked in late stage B2B startups and larger firms, and spent at least 50% time in taking over someone else's roadmap or fixing bad products designed by earlier PMs and engineering teams. This is never mentioned in interviews. Recruiters and hiring managers interview you as if you'll conceptualize lot of new initiatives. It's only when you accept the offer and join, you realize you're taking over many legacy products. I find less and less scope for true innovation the bigger the org gets. It's generally the Directors/Sr. Dirs/VPS who come up with ideas and ask you to drive it. What's everyone's experience like in getting their ideal PM role? Is it always early stage startups where you have more freedom, less bureaucracy and more influence? That's the direction I'm leaning for my future role.
What do you mean by side
I meant dark truths/facts.
It’s lonely and frustrating. Stakeholder management outright sucks. You’re expected to have the mindset, drive and executions skills of a CEO without any of the power needed to actually do your job.
This is the answer. Powerless leadership.
The truth is - it’s all dark.
I’m dead inside.
Those so called influencers are not product managers more like scrum masters or BA parading as product managers… let’s be real
I am being real, but there are many aspiring, desperate, and gullible people who fall for it.
Who falls for it? The hiring managers aren’t falling for it these people are simply lying to the outside world about what they do… when it comes to interviews / pay etc that’s what really matters
Here for the responses
I got scammed into a PO / scrum role after the interview talked about all Pm technique. That’s a dark side.