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Why Product Management Should Be Its Own Department

5/14/2012

6 Comments

 
In my 15+ years in technology I have had the privilege of working as a product manager who reported to various department heads. In some cases I reported to engineering, in other cases to marketing, and more recently to the head of product management. 

Why isn’t product management its own department in every company? What are the risks and challenges when product management reports to engineering or sales & marketing?

When product management is part of engineering, ideas and products are driven by technology. The product manager ends up getting involved in designing the solution rather than identifying the market needs. Engineers expect the product manager to be the solution architect, and as a result, the product manager’s job ends up being compromised. Engineers are the product experts; the product manager should be the market expert.

When product management is part of sales & marketing he/she ends up generating marketing plans, sales presentations or becoming the demo person. While all these tasks are important, they are not product management. Sales tools, sales presentations and demos should be handled by sales. Marketing documents and collateral should be handled by MarCom and/or product marketing.

All this confusion stems from the fact that the role of product management is not well defined. In companies that are market driven, product management is a department of its own. Product managers do the market research, identify the market needs, create the business plan and work closely with engineering to define a new product. They work with marketing to get the messaging and positioning correct and with sales to address their unique needs. Companies who place product management under other departments end up having a hybrid person that is neither a product manager nor anything else. Companies should strive to have a person doing a great job wearing one hat rather than a mediocre role wearing multiple hats. More is less. 
So when evaluating your next position ask  yourself, do I want to join a company that doesn’t understand the importance of the role of a product manager? 
6 Comments
CHUCK BRYAN
5/15/2012 09:33:09 pm

Richard,

I agree

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Bruce McCarthy link
5/17/2012 11:47:26 am

Well said, Sarela. I've worked in organizations of all of those flavors and it works best when product reports to the President or CEO.

If you want to be on sales calls all day, join the sales team. If you want to be in planning meetings all day, join engineering. If you want to drive the company in the right direction, be independent and focus on discovering market needs your company can fulfill.

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Cass link
5/18/2012 01:29:22 am

Having been a product manager for 8 yrs. I too have been in different scenarios. First with a product focus and then with a marketing focus.
Being a product manager is all about wearing different hats - what would you define as the "single hat"?

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Sarela Bliman-Cohen
5/18/2012 06:06:43 am

Thank you for your comment.
Product managers should focus on buyers' and users' needs. You need to know the market and prospects to define what is needed in a product. That is the single hat I refer to - being the market expert.

In many companies the expectation from product management is to also be the product expert and live in the "solution space". That is an engineering domain. What ends up happening is that rather than focusing on the strategic aspect of the role you are bogged down with tactical day to day activities that detract from what you were hired to do. This is where I see the many hats, doing things that don't align with your strategic role.

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Peter Eggleston link
5/19/2012 01:22:14 am

I too have seem much confusion in companies large and small where engineering and marketing 'meet.' In my experience this is easily solved by clearly defining the roles of the "product manager" and the "product marketing manager." This is yet another reason I like the Pragmatic Marketing methodology - it helps everyone understand their roles and interactions and gets everyone on the same page!

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Leon Malalel link
5/22/2012 10:26:39 pm

Hi Sarela, I agree with you.

During the course of my career as product manager, I have had the opportunity to work in different organizations with all of those different structures. Each one of them had his pros and cons and, as always, the human factor had a biggest effect on the success of failure of each one of them.
One thing that I noticed is that reality is never simple and state forward, none of the three options solves completely the issues and problems that exist in the other options. For example, serving under VP of marketing in few occasions, I did a lot of "sales support" for the sales department while in other case; I was very focused on understanding and discovering market needs.
Saying that, I'll agree that it can work best when product managers are one stand-alone unit under VP of products or VP of product management which reports directly to the CEO.

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    Sarela Bliman-Cohen is a product management executive with over 20 years experience in Technology. 

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