The ‘Good’ PM
When first joining Atlassian as an Associate Product Management (APM) intern, I honestly had very little clue what product managers really do. In fact, this is something I still find I’m asked all the time — “you’re interning in Product Management? What do you even do during the day?”
All my previous experience had been working as an engineer at hedge funds and startups, observing PMs from a distance. Looking back to the beginning of this summer, I realize I thought I knew what a Product Manager (PM) does. Fortunately, everything I thought about what PM should be, was flat-out wrong.
What I thought a PM would be: a ‘boss’ without the title
Here’s a picture of how I observed PMs previously:
They show up in the morning. They corralled us engineers from our corner of the office (far, far away from the PM). We sat in front of a whiteboard, ready-made with 6 columns: one per each one of us. The PM wrote in what we’ve been working on, asked if we were blocked (why did you let yourself become blocked?), and then basically told us what they wanted us to do next.
In this way, I received my tasks from my PM, passed everything by my PM, and basically saw my PM as my boss. Nothing happened, no decisions were made, without my PM knowing. Seemed like my boss.
So when I saw Atlassian allowed (A)PM interns, I was understandably confused, and concerned. What the heck would a PM intern do? Boss around other interns? Follow around the actual PM, and just do the busy work? I had no clue. All I knew is that some super awesome people I knew from college who were Atlassian APMs, and so they had to be on to something.
I was still nervous — the the role of PM I saw at other companies was something I definitely didn’t want to do — and why would it be different at Atlassian? Hmm…. it’s a product-driven organization, so maybe the PMs are even more domineering, pushy, and plentiful. Yikes.
Luckily, things here are done completely differently.
PM, the Atlassian way: the team’s ‘coach’
If we liken software teams to football, a great PM is a great coach. ‘Good’ PMs, it seems to me, are ambitious, and want their team to win so, so badly. Often times, like the best football coaches, they played the game themselves at some point, and crushed it (some of the best PMs I met were engineers). PMs live and breathe for the success of their team, but the magic is in how they win.
A coach is not the one to make a tackle, to complete a pass, or to land a touchdown — they’re not in the field playing the game. Similarly, PMs don’t build, and they don’t design. Heck, they don’t get any of the glory when a player shines with a great feat of skill (I’m thinking a David Tyree helmet-catch). But a PM, like a great coach, will make sure you know that their team did all these things, and make sure the team knows they did it too. The PM knows that every player on their team has talent, what their strengths are, and knows for each one how to make them shine.
A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat. — Deep Nishar, MP @ SoftBank Vision Fund
The PM may not be out in the field, but you can see from how a team plays that they’ve left their mark. The players are fired up, they work together, they have one mind, and they keep their eye on the prize. And on top of all that, the team consistently wins. A PM knows that they can’t do the work themselves. In fact, a PM knows that they couldn’t do any of the jobs of their team better than they could. But a PM knows they don’t need to — all they need to do is help their team members do theirs — with as much support, motivation, and vision as possible, and that’s the biggest contribution they could ever make.
Qualities of the ‘Good’ PM
So in my view, a ‘Good’ PM’s defining qualities are:
They don’t spend their time playing, they spend it with the players
- A ‘Good’ PM knows, for each person on their team, how to motivate them and give them what they need to feel inspired (even if it’s totally different for each person)
They stay out of the how
- They know their place — they are a coach, they don’t play ball
- They trust their team to execute the play, and they know the formidable execution power of their team if everyone is one the same page
They shine in the “locker room”
- Motivational speeches, team huddles, leadership and the occasional consoling — a ‘Good’ PM has mastered the art of getting their team fired up, no matter if their team is coming off a huge success, or a crushing failure
They set the vibe
- A great coach will keep everyone on their team laser-focused on the goal, but also knows that the team having fun together, and a vibe of levity, goes a long way to helping everyone get through the hard parts
Success consists of going from failure to failure without loss of enthusiasm. — Winston Churchill
Now, none of this is to say a PM sits on the bench all day. Nobody would respect that, and like a coach, a PM needs both respect and trust to be of any use to their team.
A PM, therefore, has to back up what they’re saying. Any players worth their weight will want to make sure that they’re risking the game — risking their careers — on a strategy that they believe will lead to success. That’s why it’s the PMs job to light the tunnel and lay their reasoning out on the table — to communicate why they came to their conclusions. For a coach, this might be a combination of past experience, trial-and-error, and competitive analysis. For a PM, it’s the same stuff. But one thing a truly great coach will do is rewatch hours of old footage, analyze thousands of past plays, and aggregate all of this analysis to make and sell their winning strategy to the team. This is a superpower I think is worth giving a special shoutout to, as the best PMs will do the same — they’ll use the data.
A ‘Good’ PM is not afraid to fight opinions with data
“Most of the world will make decisions by either guessing or using their gut. They will be either lucky or wrong.” — Suhail Doshi, CEO @ Mixpanel
I firmly believe use of data to be a primary differentiator between a ‘good’ PM strategist, and a poor one. A ‘Good’ PM will know the right questions to ask, and use data to answer them. A ‘Good’ PM knows about statistical significance, and has a nose for when the data is wrong. But what a PM knows most of all, is that data is the language of truth that their whole team speaks — and it is the ultimate form of communication and persuasion.
Conclusion
I know this doesn’t represent all of the things a ‘Good’ PM does. There is also developing empathy with customers, stakeholder relationships, keeping current with the industry, and much else. Those are worthy of their own blog posts, I’m sure. But what surprised me most this summer was how a PM can be with their team, and how much they can contribute to an incredible work culture that made it a joy to intern at Atlassian.
PMs are a powerful influence on their teams, for both good and for worse, and I’ve been both surprised and inspired to see how the Atlassian PMs, like the best coaches, use that influence to help accomplish the incredible.
