Advice for Independent Product Managers from a former Consultant
If you ask 10 different Product Managers what they do, there’s a good chance that the first thing they’ll do is sigh and start “Well, it depends …” or some variation of it. According to Wikipedia, Product management is an organisational function within a company dealing with new product development, business justification, planning, verification, forecasting, pricing, product launch, and marketing of a product or products at all stages of the product lifecycle
This basically means that if a company or person wants to launch something new, the product manager is the one responsible for coming up with the thing: figuring out if the thing is worthwhile, building the thing, selling the thing, and making sure the thing is able to keep making money and what to do when it doesn’t anymore.
As a product manager, you’re being paid to think, and in the context of a company, it makes perfect sense to have a role like this. Companies need someone to spearhead new initiatives and see them through. It’s a critical role that everyone can understand the value of.
But …the problem with high-value roles is that few people/organisations want to outsource them. Which makes it difficult to be independent as a Product Manager. Your value as a Product Manager is integral to the projects’ success, so it makes…
