So, What Do You Actually Do As A Product Manager?

A typical day in the life as a PM

A lot of people have asked me what I do on a day-to-day basis as a software Product Manager, so here’s a schedule from an average day to help draw back the curtain. Product Management activities differ across organizations, titles, and teams. Common variables that will affect your individual experience are: product lifecycle stage, job level, frontend vs backend focus, and stage of the company. I’m currently in the new product development stage, so my “typical day” is likely skewed towards planning and coordination activities.

Much of a Product Manager’s responsibility is to juggle multiple streams of conversation and move them towards closure.

Whether over email or in meetings, you should be resolving uncertainty by gathering all available information (usage data, time constraints, budget constraints, competitor implementation, etc.), discussing the options with everyone, and either making a decision or assigning action items to get to one. People assume that because of the centrality of the role, a PM can tell people what to do — but that’s completely untrue and is a mark of a bad PM. Your role is deeply collaborative and many times you’ll be persuading people to support…