A day in the life of a product manager

I often get asked what it is I do all day.

Some times it’s by my wife who wonders why I sit up in my office for nine hours straight with the occasional voice being heard.

Some times it’s by my team, when they see me at the daily stand up and then don’t see me for the rest of the day whilst they’re busy delivering the latest set of features.

And some times it’s by people who are wanting to make the transition into a product role, because they like the sound of it, but don’t really understand what that means on a day-to-day basis.

This post is for this last group of people (although if my wife is reading, that’s fine too!).

Every day is different

In reality, there isn’t a typical day for a product manager, which is down to the fact that we’re servants to the rest of the business. We do some proactive work which we (kind of) control, but a lot of the time we’re reactive to the needs of others in the business.

In addition, the way that every business delivers their product is different. They could run one week sprints, two week sprints, kanban, or a version of waterfall, and this has an impact what you’ll be doing, as each approach carries with it certain activities at certain times.