Pro-Athletes are the REAL Product Managers
“Nobody talk junk about the CEO who leaves Apple and goes to Google. As a basketball player, you are the CEO of a business. You are a business. Kevin Durant is a big business. He is the CEO of that business” — Draymond Green
Professional athletes are product managers, product owners, and CEO’s — and have been for a long time, whether you realize it or not. It may not seem obvious but this blog post highlights the ways in which professional athletes have already been, in a sense using the frameworks and methodologies as world-class PMs to manage their athletic careers — and are more than equipped for careers in product management.
As an individual, you are a company. Your skills and assets are products in which you manage and they come in many forms. I’ll use myself as an example:
Company: Dr. D’Andra Moss, Inc.
Product: Professional Basketball Player
Product: Doctor
Product: Developer
Products in a company have features that need development. As the athlete, much like the PM, feature development has to be prioritized based on your goals, budget, accessibility to training, and so forth. Developing features of the product and keeping track of their performance in a systematic way is how PM’s and athletes understand whether they are on the right path with direct evidence from quantified constructs.
Company: Dr. D’Andra Moss, Inc.
Product: Professional Basketball Player
Feature: Shooting
Feature: Athleticism
Feature: Leadership
Let’s break this down with an example and quantify some features using the goals, signals, and metrics methodology commonly used by PMs.
I have a goal to get in shape for the season because I’ve been in quarantine and feel heavy (realistically this could be all of us at this point). There are a ton of ways to go about measuring what “in shape” means and for every athlete, “in shape” will mean different things and be measured in different ways.
I’m going to track “in shape” (the goal) with weight in pounds (the signal). We will then track the difference in the weight measured weekly over a 12 week period (the metric). Ta-da!
The beautiful thing about metrics is their uniqueness and the personalization from athlete to athlete. While there are some foundational goals that will be the same across athletes (like getting “in shape”), the signals and metrics will vary depending on the athlete and the physical demands from the sport they’re playing.
“In shape” as an NFL linebacker, for him tracking the weight he’s lost over time may not be the best signal that he’s in shape. There are other signals he can track for his sport and fitness goals that will be better indicators that he’s headed in the right direction.
Let’s take it a step further. The H.E.A.R.T. UX metrics framework (used as A.T.E.R.H., Adoption, Task Success, Engagement, Retention, Happiness) crafted by Kerry Rodden, is frequently used among PMs to make sure their products are headed in the right direction and to understand a customer journey.
When combined with goals, signals, and metrics, this framework is a powerful way to track product or company goals.
I’m going to use the H.E.A.R.T framework and demonstrate its applicability in a practical way as a professional athlete to track career decisions such as happiness and whether or not to change teams — down to more granular goals like improving shooting by using a different shooting form.
Professional sports is data-driven: wins, losses, points, rebounds, efficiency rating. Professional athletes are also data-driven when it comes to achieving their OKRs (objectives and key results) and are the best at separating the signals from the noise when it comes to achieving them. They have tunnel vision and don’t let the loudest stat interfere with the goals.
Happiness is a good example of how goals are custom-tailored depending on the company and company goals — in this case, the athlete. What will make one athlete happy may not make the other. One famous example is the notion that, well if you’re making x amount of money, scoring x amount of points, your house is x-thousand square feet, you should be happy. If those are your goals as a professional athlete that you need to be happy then sure, you’re ecstatic! But if not, it becomes noise or fluff.
Professional athletes are more than athletes (thanks Lebron) and have an abundance of experience with running big businesses, collaborating & leading teams, and managing products. They are the business and are well equipped for careers in product management. Many have an entrepreneurship spirit with a get shit done attitude. Pro-athletes are real-life PMs.
