By Saeed Khan
I came across a post on Andrew Chen’s blog entitled “Why companies should have Product Editors, not Product Managers“. Obviously I had to respond. 🙂
Yes, Product Management is ill understood but….
In the article, Chen highlights a YouTube video of Twitter/Square CEO Jack Dorsey talking about how he manages both companies. Jack refers to company activities as “stories” and uses the title “chief editor” to refer to himself as he manages those stories.
Clearly this is an anology to help explain a point. As analogies go, it’s not a bad one, but unfortunately, it looks like Chen took Dorsey literally, and wrote the above mentioned blog post. In it Chen writes:
The role of “product manager” “program manager” “project manager” is one of the toughest, and worst defined jobs in tech. And it often doesn’t lead to good products. The various PM roles often have no direct reports, but you have the responsibility of getting products out the door. It often becomes a detail-oriented role that are as much about hitting milestones and schedules as much as delivering a great product experience.
Wow, where do I start? While there is some truth in this paragraph, it’s also a big generalization of issues.
First, “Product Manager”, “Program Manager” and “Project Manager” are all different roles with different responsibilities. Yes, there is confusion about the role and definition of Product Management, but not to the extent that is implied here.
Second, the confusion on the PM roles isn’t the reason people build bad products. People build bad products because they don’t know what they are doing! And even when people do know what they are doing, their product may be technically good, but unsuccessful in the market.
You can’t fix a problem by changing titles around
Chen quotes Dorsey as follows: (I’m excerpting)
I think every leader in any company is an editor. Taking all of these ideas and editing them down to one cohesive story, and in my case my job is to edit the team, so we have a great team that can produce the great work and that means bringing people on and in some cases having to let people go. That means editing the support for the company, which means having money in the bank, or making money, and that means editing what the vision and the communication of the company is, so that’s internal and external, what we’re saying internally and what we’re saying to the world – that’s my job.
Now take words “editor” or “editing” above and replace with “manager” and “managing” respectively, and what do you get? Exactly the same meaning without ambiguity. In some cases, the “editor” metaphor is actually quite weak. e.g. “That means editing the support for the company, which means having money in the bank”
In the media world, editors don’t focus on money, publishers do. Editors focus on content. Publishers focus on business. But who said the analogy was perfect? Anyway, we don’t need “Product Editors” unless the product is a book or some kind of media offering.
So here’s what we really need
What we need for product success and product leadership are people who understand that their job is the business success of any product.
And they do this by understanding business strategy, market needs (current and potential future), business value and where it intersects with technology. They do this by taking risks and experimenting and learning. They do this by optimizing for the user, and not optimizing for the technology. They do this by having patience and not rushing things to market. They do this by creating differentiated products with clear audiences in mind and not by creating generic offerings for the masses.
That’s where they focus their priorities, resources and thinking, and not simply into new titles, or product features and functionality, scrum teams, iterations, user stories etc.
Too often people with “PM” titles let themselves be pigeonholed into tactical roles as Chen describes in his earlier quote. While company culture is a big factor in that, in many cases, those people need to speak out and change the culture, or walk out and find success and job satisfaction elsewhere.
Saeed
Tweet this: “Product Editor”? You’ve got to be kidding! http://wp.me/pXBON-3lc #prodmgmt #innovation