What does a product manager do?

As a Product Manager, I regularly meet people who find it hard to understand and/or describe what a (software) product manager does. I don't blame them. Very early in my own career as a product manager, I would embark on a monologue for 2 minutes when asked what a product manager did, probably leaving the listener more confused at the end than when I started off.

With experience, I am now able to describe the essence of what a product manager does in one line.

Statement 1: The product manager defines what product the engineering organization should build

"what" is the operative word here. The engineering lead/architect defines the "how", the project manager defines the "when", the product manager defines the "what".

Product managers seem to do a lot of other things, so am I oversimplifying or even inaccurately depicting the role of a product manager? The answer to that is that it depends and I will explain it in two parts.

I. A *lot* of what a product manager does really just supports the essence that I have described above. Activities such as:

a. competitive analysis
b. creating the business case (the "why" of the product)
c. talking to customers, users, executive management, other functional groups within the company (legal, marketing, biz dev, PR, ...)
d. writing PRDs
e. prototyping
f. working with user experience design

Each of these activities helps the product manager understand what product needs to be built and then describe it in a way that engineering can build it. Hence, these activities all support the essence I have stated above.

II. Some other activities of a product manager don't fall so cleanly into the essence. Examples include:

a. Supporting the sales team in deal pursuit
b. Clearing obstacles in product development (funding, resources, ...)
c. Educating people about the product (data sheets, presentations, ...)
d. Working on partnerships

These and other such activities may be a necessary part of a product manager's job, but they are not sufficient without the essence. These activities can be bundled under the following description

Statement 2: A product manager also supports other parts of the organization in order to ensure product success

The role of a product manager is probably one of the most misunderstood roles in the industry today. I have seen people with a product manager title performing the role of a marketing manager, project manager, business analyst, solutions engineer, account manager, business development professional. Conversely, I have seen people in the role of a tech lead, business analyst, marketing manager, program manager, engineering manager perform the role of a product manager. Whether or not your title says it, and whether or not you know it, if you are doing what I have described in statements 1 and 2, you are a product manager.