Why product managers are essential and what UX designers can learn from them.
The decline of the traditional product manager?
A few month ago I was chatting with a senior product manager. Although he did not have an background in design, he told me:
I guess in a few years time there will be no classical product managers or product owners. Teams will only consist of (UX) designers and developers who work on a strategic topic. And those teams will perform so much faster and user-centred than our current setup: PO, UX, dev.
At that time his statement sounded to me quite reasonable and time would tell…
The value of design changes when you enable whole teams to learn instead of just looking at pretty mockups
Shortly before I joined mobile.de (an eBay owned automotive platform in Germany with millions of visits per month) a smart product manager had an idea: The iPhone app should be redesigned not only to match current visual design guidelines and trends but also to get rid of usability issues that were caused by the current design approach.
Shortly after my start at the company I was handed the project. We tried to tackle the project with an iterative approach. Knowing that…
Maximilian Wambach
Digital Solutions Manager @Novartis_DE, previously @ebay, @SiemensHealth. Views are my own.
