"I want to be a Product Manager when I’m older!"

How many children have you heard saying this? Probably not many. And that’s understandable. Traditional education tends to steer children towards a limited pool of professions?—?teaching, medicine, law, etc.

But times are changing. More initiatives are emerging to expose children to a broader range of possibilities, most prominently in digital areas.

However, in alignment with a previous lack of spreading of a more diversified range of jobs, in the specific case of Product Management, stands the fact that the Product Manager (PM) role can be considered a “recent” job.

So, when did it start???

As long as there have been products to sell, people have assumed Product Management responsibilities, without the label. The role recognition dates back to 1931 with ex-US Secretary of State Neil H. McElroy while at Procter & Gamble. Initially called the Brand Man.?

Initially, the PM role began its main growth in Fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies and was strongly associated with Marketing. It was primarily focused on understanding customer needs, with sales and profits carrying significant weight in the role.

Product Management plugged into the tech world??

With the rise of the internet and digital technologies in the early 2000s, the transition from traditional, physical products to digital ones created a demand for individuals capable of overseeing the development, launch, and continuous improvement of these products. As a result, this need led to a division between Product Management and Marketing: Product Management would focus on product development and value proposition while Marketing would be more focused on brand and customer acquisition.??

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But after all, what does it mean to be a Product Manager?

Think of a Product Manager as a ship captain: who has to navigate the course, charting the direction based on the needs of passengers (customers) and the conditions of the sea (market). For that, they have to coordinate the crew (Engineering, Design, Marketing, etc.) to ensure smooth sailing and steer towards success.

A PM is responsible for setting the vision and product strategy, prioritizing features, and coordinating with different teams (engineering, design, marketing, sales, customer success, and management), to ensure alignment with both business objectives and customer needs.?

They must be capable of aligning qualitative and quantitative data insights to support decisions, but at the same time have enough vision to make decisions based on experience and intuition, which frequently diverge from strictly data-driven insights.?

Lea Hickman is a perfect example of a Product visionary. In 2011, she led Product for Adobe’s Creative Suite.

Lea knew that the market was changing, and the company needed to move from the old desktop-centric, annual-upgrade model, to a subscription-based model supporting all the devices designers were using. But a change with this dimension would be challenging - especially in a big company.?

To enact her vision she worked with Adobe’s then-CTO, Kevin Lynch, to put together some prototypes detailing the power of this new foundation, and communicated it continuously with leaders and stakeholders across the entire company.?

Because of the tremendous success of the Creative Cloud -? Adobe generated more than $1 billion in recurring revenue faster in record time—Adobe discontinued new releases of the desktop-based Creative Suite and moved all focus to their innovative creative suite.?

Product Manager role variances

As the landscape of Product Management evolves, companies are recognizing the need for more specialized roles within the field.

Beyond the traditional "Product Manager" title lies a realm of new exciting opportunities!?

For example, Technical Product Manager role - these specialized PMs are expected to have a strong understanding of the details of technical tasks, without actually committing code to notebook themselves.

If the goal is to find a master of market analysis and competitive positioning - in this case a Strategic Product Manager is required.? They're focused on mapping out the companies grand product plans, while a standard PM scope is more often just the one product.

With the rise of data-driven products, the need for Data Product Managers is skyrocketing as well. They live, breathe and sleep all things data, always seeking novel insights to direct better strategic and tactical decisions.

Occasionally, we can also find titles linked to specific verticals or tasks, such as Growth or Mobile Product Manager. The more specialized the role, the more specific the skill set will be expected.

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The future of Product Management

As the awareness and demand for Product Management continue to rise, we can expect more specialized roles.

The future is uncertain, but the role of PM will undoubtedly remain relevant. As the AI race keeps expanding across various sectors, its impact on Product Management is inevitable ?— hopefully positive, considering the room for improvement, particularly when it comes to the analysis tasks.

However, certain aspects of the role, such as guaranteeing the alignment between different stakeholders, are too complex to be easily automated. Moreover, the visionary skillset, often developed through experience and sometimes diverging from data, also significantly influences product development decisions, proving resistant to replacement by AI.?

The dream of becoming a Product Manager may not yet echo loudly among the current youth, but in a few years, the answer to " How many children have you heard saying that they want to be a Product Manager when they are older?" will have a completely different answer.