Yet another post about what Product Management is

There are a ton of posts attempting to answer this question. And I want to contribute too!

I’ll give you an easy and concise answer to this question.

Product Management = Determining what the team will build next.

As a PM, this is the key thing you are trying to figure out. And to answer this question, you need to balance three needs.

1. The needs of the business. Is leadership undertaking certain strategic initiatives? What are competitors up to? Are market dynamics changing?
2. The tech needs. What do the technical people are your team say is actually feasible.
3. The needs of the user. What are your users going to need in the future?

Number 3 here is particularly tricky (see my post on product-market fit).

This, in a nutshell, is what a PM does. It’s all about the “what” and “why”, and a lot less about the “how”.