What My Wife Thinks I Do as a Product Manager
And how my wife’s interpretation of my job made me rethink my focus.
“Now I finally know what you do” my wife said to me about three months into the Covid-19 pandemic. We had both been working from home since early March 2020 and, not having a spare room, our dining table became our home office. Here we spent the weekdays sitting next to each other on our not-so-comfy-but-stylish chairs and made it a ritual to start the weekend on Friday evenings clearing the table of all our work gear (what a life we live).
Working next to each other, we quickly realised that our day-to-day differed significantly. Being a lawyer, she spent most of her time quietly reading through thick stacks of paper. I, as a product manager, on the other hand spent a substantial amount of my time on calls. Over the course of those three months, she inadvertently heard pieces of my conversations and got a glimpse into what I do.
I did what any good husband would do
Given that the concept of product management is still relatively new, I have often been asked what a product manager does by people I’ve met. At first, I struggled, saying something about “working with developers”. But over time I refined my quick person-I-just-met description of my role.
But my wife’s comment piqued my curiosity. So, I did what any good husband would: I sat her down and interviewed her. I was excited to understand what my job looks like to someone who has been hearing me talk in various meetings for the last few months, but has never worked with a product manager, let alone worked for a tech company, nor seen my screen.
Q: How would you define product management?
“You take a product and think about how it can be improved. Then you work with a team of developers to make it better and with a UX designer to make it user friendly. In one sentence, product management is analysing a product to pinpoint problems and implementing solutions to fix those problems.” (That’s pretty much spot on, I’d say)
Q: How does my day-to-day look?
“In the morning, you have standup where you talk about what you have been doing and what you will be doing during the day.
Overall, you talk to a lot of people because you need to ensure that things come together. You talk with the developers, the tech lead, UX, customer success and other PMs. You meet with people who are going to essentially help you make the product better. You conduct interviews with partners and customers and check the copy and design.
You also create roadmaps to plan for the future, so you don’t go off on a tangent and to ensure that you have everybody on board. You get data about the usage of the product to make the product better and to see patterns in the user behaviour, for example ‘no one is clicking on this particular button on the page, so why is it there?’ And you do market research to see what your competitors and the market is doing.”
Q: What do you find most exciting about my job?
“Talking to a lot of people from so many different areas to make the product better. But I guess having to involve so many different parties in your decision making could also be frustrating.”
Q: What’s the worst part of my job?
“Attending lots of meetings means you don’t have time to work on other parts of your job.”
Q: What are the core skills needed?
- People skills, namely being able to communicate well with people and work as a team
- Time management
- Organisational skills
- Analytical skills
- Creative thinking
- Critical thinking
Q: Would you like to be doing my job?
“I think I’d find it quite exhausting as you’re going from meeting, to meeting, to meeting. However, I like the idea of working to improve a product and that you get to work with a variety of people each day.”
Q: Has understanding what I do better been useful in any way?
“It helps me understand more when you tell me about your day. It will also make it easier to picture your day at work once you go back to working in the office.”
Time for self-reflection
I think she did very well in giving an overview of what I do on a day-to-day basis. It did feel a bit like a personal development session, as I was trying to see what I could learn from her comments. Taking a step back and reading through her answers I realised four things:
- I am doing product management
- I want to get better at facilitation
- I feel more aligned
- I need a holiday
I am doing product management
This might sound obvious at first but hear me out.
Product management, still being a new field, is often misunderstood. Companies want to position themselves as attractive employers and therefore jump ahead and write job ads for product managers when, in reality, they should be looking for a project manager. A company where senior leaders are not yet ready to let others take ownership of the product is no place for a product manager. I hear this frequently and have experienced this myself.
Although her answers don’t have the depth required to constitute a thorough analysis of my job, my wife’s comments fill me with confidence that I am indeed doing the role of a product manager.
I want to get better at facilitation
At the beginning of July 2020 Jonathan Courtney, owner of design sprint agency AJ&Smart, posted the above about facilitation being the next key role into the ‘Innovation Hackers’ Facebook group. That sentence stuck with me. Reading my wife’s summary of my job, it became clear to me again just how important people skills are to product management. I facilitate a lot of discussions, brainstorming and presentations and the role of the facilitator will only become more important in my future career. Hence, I am already looking for a personal development course I can take to further improve this skill, especially remotely.
I feel more aligned
My colleague Arne wrote about alignment being paramount for successful teams. I’d like to take this one step further and say that alignment within a personal relationship is also crucial. We are still in the midst of a pandemic and uncertainty remains in many parts of our lives. Having my wife better understand what I do and why certain things can be stressful for me helps us to align with one another, which brings stability to our daily lives, through these turbulent times and beyond.
I need a holiday
Reading through this made me realise just how much running around I do and how much product management is about connecting people. It also explains why I am so tired after work. Being a PM in a pandemic is not impossible but aligning so many people really can be exhausting. I need a holiday.
Your free personal development session
So, go ahead, ask your home-bound partner about what they have witnessed and learned about you. Maybe you’ll also learn a little more about yourself. If you do, I’d love to read about it in the comments.
