Product Management Primer
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What Exactly Is Product Management?
Product management is neither R&D nor sales, but the intersection of making it and selling it, says Sam Knox, a former product manager at AT&T and other high tech firms. Even though you may be "responsible for everything and have authority over no one," it's where the most interesting work is happening, he says.
As the voice of the customer, product managers lead the process of maintaining and improving products, and developing new ones. Typically, they bear profit-and-loss responsibility for the product, carrying out tasks such as forecasting sales, training the sales team, and gathering, interpreting and relaying customer feedback to engineering.
"I loved that no two days were the same," says Bob Viney, recalling his years as brand manager for Proctor & Gamble, where four product managers reported to him. "Monday, you're out at a customer site; Tuesday, at the advertising agency in New York; Wednesday, with finance guys," says Viney, now vice president of technology firm Exchange Solutions Inc.
