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Are you a project manager?


Every now and then we have to introduce ourselves as product managers, and most conversations go a bit like this

Q: What do you do?

Me: I'm a product manager

Q: Is that like a project manager?

Me: Ah no ...  <deep breath> ... well...

This is a fair question; as the role is usually behind the scenes and a lot of people have not met a product manager in the wild.

And there are lots of possible answers here, the key things I try to get across in my answer are

  • We care about the whole product,

  • Our goal is overall success for the organisation and the customer,

  • We work with everyone, including project managers, and

  • Our job is not that weird

Naturally as part of any discussion you want to tailor the answer to the recipient.  Ask what they know already, what kind of products they might sell themselves, and use this to understand your conversation partner and their business better. This also help prevent patronising them.

So my answer goes something like this:

Me: Ah no ...  <deep breath> ... well… what kind of business are you in?

Q: Oh well, we sell cans of beans

Me: Then you know that there is a whole lot more going on than the can in a store.  The manufacture of the ingredients, putting them in the can, boxing and transporting them, charging a price for them, and even some sort of support if people don’t like them… and so on. People see the can, but they are actually buying everything around it. We care about that.

Who does that for your organisation?

Q: The people in head-office

Me: Someone has to coordinate all this so that customers buy the beans, and the whole organisation works together to make a profit.  It is a team sport because there are a lot of moving parts.

So what do your project managers do?

Q: They’re usually making sure we hit deadlines and get stuff done.

Me: We do some of that as well. We work pretty closely with everyone including project managers to make sure we’re all building the same thing, and that it gets delivered on time. It’s usually a balancing act for everyone.


So I see this as a bit of discussion and a chance to understand how other businesses work.

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