We Are All Product Managers Now

Ten years ago I tried to visualize the difference between a product manager and business analyst. That diagram had some overlap between the roles but left many things on either side of Venn diagram overlap. In the years since the popularity of the product owner role has skyrocketed (peaked perhaps?). On a recent call with a client (large, multi-national, legacy financial services) a debate arose between the distribution of responsibilities between, now, three roles – business analyst, product manager and product owner. Ten years ago I would have worked to separate specific work to specific individuals. Today, in 2024, we are all product managers now.?

Forcing a division reduces collaboration and shared understanding

I once worked with a company where the product manager role was an outward facing role. In other words, their responsibility was to interface with the customer and the market. They would do competitive analyses, speak to customers, run experiments and define the product vision and goals. The product owners in the same company faced inward. They were the liaison with the development team. This included the designers. The only insight into the “outside world” as it were for the product development team was the product owner. They defined specific requirements, wrote user stories, prioritized them in a backlog and managed the project plan. This company also had business analysts. Every feature had to be run past them to ensure it followed business rules, regulations and any other domain-specific constraints.?

The development team had information coming at them from 3 different directions. All of that information was filtered through a single point – the product owner – who inevitably editorialized it to fit their vision for success (hey, they’re only human). Once the team produced something the product owner would share it with the product manager, business analyst and eventually other stakeholders to see how it met their needs. The back and forth cycle was slow, prone to miscommunication and misunderstandings. It kept the teams from talking to each other and to the outside world because every one of these 3 roles kept access to “their” information and insight well guarded. Otherwise, what was the point of their job? My current client’s situation was identical.?

The biggest losers in this situation were the product development teams and ultimately the customers. The team never had a clear sense of why they were doing certain work or why direction had changed. Getting anything clarified took days and sometimes weeks – time that could have been spent refining the product and getting it to market. There was no shared conversation which meant no shared understanding. The system was broken because of roles defined to separate the work rather than bring it together.?

We are all product managers now

If you work in any capacity that seeks to understand the market, discover gaps and opportunities, define a product vision and lead the process of making that vision a reality in a compelling way to your customers, you are a product manager. The specific responsibilities will vary between companies and industries. Your level of technical expertise, domain knowledge and customer understanding will also fluctuate based on the specifics of your context. You will do work that was once covered by business analysts. You will undoubtedly do what product owners have been defined to do. And, despite its malleability and squishiness, you will also be doing product management work. We need a name for all of it. That name is product manager.

The more we divide the role the less successful the end result will be. We need a person building an inclusive, diverse discussion with everyone involved in the making of a product. We need to eliminate the territoriality of roles. We can’t divide our perspective into outward and inward-facing ones. And, most importantly, we can’t keep our teams away from the customer.

My guess is that those who currently carry the product manager title will nod along in agreement with this post. My other guess is that those of you holding product owner and business analyst titles will resist this idea and likely poke some reasonable, well-intentioned holes in my very short argument. I’m ready to hear it. Before you do that, though, please consider how your argument ultimately makes for a better customer experience and successful business. Ok? Let’s go.?