Welcome back, friends. In my last post, I shared why I’m interested in product management and how I’ve come to think about the role of the product manager using Daniel Schmidt’s Product Management Triangle.
This week, I’m going to share more personal thoughts on my interest.
Hybrid Roles
When I was in college, the data science field was quickly gaining massive popularity. This made my major change (from mechanical engineering to data science) feel like a safe bet even though the field was still so new.
Why did I choose data science? I’d be lying if I told you that the “Data Scientist is The Sexiest Job of the 21st Century” article didn’t influence my decision (who doesn’t wanna be a sexy 21st century workaholic?), but an even bigger interest came because of the hybrid nature of the role.
Article after article described a need to know stats, ML, coding, some business knowledge, your co-workers Mom’s names, etc. You need to know a bit of everything to be dangerous. This makes the field daunting, yet exciting. It also feels like a way to defer your real choice. I knew I would eventually need to specialize, at least a little bit, but I didn’t know what I wanted to specialize in. Choosing a hybrid field gave me time to defer that process and by getting exposure to different aspects of the role, and different needs of the industry, and see what happened (for more on my thoughts about this, check out the Why’d You Choose Your Field section in How are Internalized Ideas Affecting You).
I am also drawn the synthesis side of the hybrid roles. If you take on a life as a hybrid, the odds you advance any one of those fields, in and of themselves, is low. You won’t have time to go deep enough. But, you will be able to create new things that take advantage of each one (and the connections between), which is a good alternative.
Depending on your situation, you still end up focusing on certain aspects more than others. My experience followed this tweet:
I said it jokingly, but that is what happened to me.
Tooling in the field is still nascent and most solutions won’t do what you need out of the box, so you probably need to write a bunch of code to get the job done. Depending on how much “a bunch” is, you can end up a full time software engineer.
But, like I said earlier, I was hoping for a process like this. I deferred my specialization choice by picking a hybrid role. That path has taken me towards software engineering which has worked out well so far.
PM - Another Hybrid Role
How is my data science decision related to PM? I want to pay attention to connections between my thought process then and now. What can I learn about myself by thinking more about why I found data science interesting?
The connection between these fields I’m focused on is their hybrid and undefined nature. “Product manager” means much different things from company to company, much like “data scientist” does because they are at the intersection of multiple fields and each company’s needs are so different (that may be where the similarities stop, but it’s an important one).
It makes me wonder what is says about me that has made these fields so attractive. Why do I like going broad instead of deep?
Do I have a short attention span? Do I associate intelligence with broad range? Am I not that great at any one thing so I want to cover it up by doing many things? Am I afraid I can’t cultivate interest and consistency in a single field? Do I like it because a bunch of other people like it?
In Salman Ansari’s post, The Polymath Playbook, he relates to this drive to do many things. He has many disparate interests that he has spent a lot of deep time with (without worrying too much about whether they make sense).
But there is tension here with How Not to Let Work Explode Your Life. Our lives are already so multi-faceted. Even if you’re deeply specialized in your job, you still do so much in your life, from relationships to cooking to staying fit.
So why do many of us feel the need to add more complexity to our lives by searching for jobs that require such a range of knowledge and skills?
I know there is something deeper to this, but I’m not sure what it is. I have never found a singular obsession (for a long period of time), despite often envying those who have.
This often makes me wonder if I have a lack of consistency or will power to stick with something, or if the people with true obsessions have a completely different experience than me. It doesn’t seem like they struggle to come back. For some reason or another, they feel they have to come back, which is a feeling I’ve struggled to sustain for long periods.
Burnout Consideration
It also feels important to note that I think my interest in PM is driven by my experience of burnout. The best description of my burnout experience is this tweet
I’m frustrated that I feel I have a strong skill set, but I can’t find the right place to put it to use. “If only I was a PM, then I would be in control of what work should be done. Then, I wouldn’t feel like this anymore…”
I suspect this is a feeling that drives many people to this role, which brings me to the next section.
The Bad of PM
The internet is riddled with people asking “How do I break into PM?” My guess is that this wave of interest is the result of many peoples’ frustrations in their current jobs
They don’t see the point to their work. They think, “if only I was the one calling the shots.”
Luckily, there are plenty of current PM’s on the web ready to tell us why the idealistic vision of product management that we have in our burned out heads isn’t quite accurate.
I’m going to pull some of my favorite highlights from two reddit threads on the topic with the intention of making sure I understand that you don’t just get to be Steve Jobs. It’s a pain in the ass much like any other job.
The basic theme of both threads is “people think this idealistic thing about product managers, but in reality, all we do are these painful or boring things.”
Are You Sure You Want to be a Product Manager?
First, are you sure you want to be a product manager. A post on r/ProductManagement who wanted to break the noise between all of the “How do I break into Product Management” questions. Here are my favorite quotes
“you are usually the bad guy”
You aren’t Steve Jobs, you just have to tell everyone No - a lot.
“you rarely get to build what you want”
You have to build what people will pay for. You fill white space and synthesize. You don’t get to brainstorm all day about sick new features
“Your credibility is always on the line”
“Responsible for the success of the product, but even more, the failure!”
“management role without management authority”
“All the responsibility and zero authority”
These are each from different people, but they paint a good picture. PM’s get blamed for product failure despite their lack of direct authority of the people involved. PM’s need to “influence creatively” (another quote from the thread).
“You eventually stop building things”
You don’t actually get to build the product. Instead you’re building the environment for others to build the product (part of the reason they don’t get much recognition for success)
And if that wasn’t enough for you, here is another reddit thread starting with a simple question: “I've been a PM for two years and it's fine. But I don't understand why everyone's always so focused on becoming one?”
Why Does Everyone Always Seem to Want to be a PM?
This one starts with the question: “I've been a PM for two years and it's fine. But I don't understand why everyone's always so focused on becoming one?”
You know my theory (burnout), but here’s some of the comments from the post
"I want to be a PM because I have a lot of good ideas about the product and the PM gets to decide everything that goes into a product!"
Which is true, if by "gets to decide everything that goes into a product", you mean "has to deal with 1,000 different stakeholders all trying to inject their personal vision into the product and once a decade the PM gets to do something they actually want."
Synthesizer, not a creator
True, I do feel like 50% of my job is just delivering bad news as delicately as I can, and I get promoted/have promotions lined up on an ongoing basis. 110% not trying to brag. It's not about that. It's just what the job is even if things are going as well as they could be.
They tend to forget the agonizing where one developer raises hell with your boss about user stories not being detailed enough, only to have a second dev come along and tell your boss that you are being too detailed and are trying to tell them how to do their job. Then you have a QA person who thinks they should be a product manager so they log defects with things the product "should" do, that aren't in the acceptance criteria you set out for them to verify against, which correspond to the business outcomes you are trying to solve for.
It’s true. It feels that way. Everyone wants the good that comes with the title, recognition, etc. but no one wants the brutal reality of the job: the mass amount of critical thinking, abundance of responsibility, and constant stress of managing stakeholders expectations.
There’s a lot to this one. The first part feels closely connected to “management position with no management power” from the first thread and also shows the struggles PM’s have communicating and getting to know their teams.
The last part definitely gets at “you are responsible for success, but even more so, for failure.” There does seem to be a lot of pressure and not a lot of great outlets to handle that pressure or get recognition for the work - other than plenty of happy users, I presume.
But Still
What’s funny and great about these threads is that at the end of most posts, people say “yeah you are all right… I still love it though.” I also talked to two product manager friends and they shared the same sentiment. When I brought up those reddit threads there were like “oh yeah, lol, it’s all true… but I still love it.” That says a lot about the positives of the job.
My Test Run
I’ve decided to pick up a worthwhile side project to test out two different tentacles, the first of which is product management. It’ll also allow me to help a really cool group.
I’m going to build a match portal for Skype A Scientist.
Skype a Scientist has a database of thousands of scientists and helps them connect with classrooms, families, libraries, scout troops, and more all over the globe! We give students the opportunity to get to know a real scientist and get the answers to their questions straight from the source.
The current system to create matches between classrooms/groups and scientists is a bit ad hoc. The sign up is through a google form that hits a database and the rest is handled through automated emails. This doesn’t allow for users to access historical data, or for more advanced features like session feedback.
Our current plan is to create a new match portal to meet the same needs, but keep more historical data and make the matching experience better for teachers/group leaders, scientists, and most of all, Sarah (the founder).
How does this help?
I’ll get a sense for product management by translating Sarah’s requirements into software. Then, I’ll get to watch users go through it and figure out their issues. I need to be very careful not to build something that accidentally makes the sign up process worse...
Plus, even more so than product management, I’ll explore web design/frontend because I’ll actually have to build this thing (more on that tentacle in upcoming posts).
I want to pay attention to which part of the project gives me the most energy. Where do I enjoy spending time the most/least? Which part of the project felt easiest? Which part feels hardest? Which part do I appreciate doing the most/least?
A key aspect I’ll be missing is the skill of translating Sarah’s requirements to more people, which is key to being a good product manager. Not much I can do about that for now, but I’ll have to keep that in mind.
Do I want do be one? Or just have one?
The last question I want to pose to myself and others who are toying with the “should I get into product management question?” is: Do I want to be one? Or do I just want to have one (or get myself into a better work situation)?
For now, I’m a bit torn on my answer. I also think it’s hard to analyze clearly with my currently jaded, burnt out, attitude. My plan is to make my thoughts clearer as I work on the Skype a Scientist Match Portal.
See you next time!
Thanks for reading! If anything resonated with you I’d love to hear about in the comment or on twitter.