- Managing sprints
- Writing specifications
- Communicating releases
- Making micro-tradeoffs
The most basic need that a PM satisfies is shipping features. At smaller companies, your tech lead and/or your first PM will handle this need. At larger companies a project manager may satisfy this need, especially when cross-product features are involved. This involves day-to-day tackling of large and small decisions that block the successful release of a new feature.
This can range from debating with design on the right feature specifics, to testing some of those specifics with customer input. From communicating the feature on a specification to engineering to working with engineering day-to-day to ensure a successful release of the new feature. It involves informing customers of the new release and managing the success metrics of the release. Your PM is showing up at team standups, weighing in on JIRA and Invision (or equivalent), and often participating in retros.
- Plan 3-5 month roadmaps
- Aligning stakeholders across engineering
- Design and marketing
- Motivating the team
- Challenge product-market fit
- Pricing and packaging
- Competitive analysis
The role of a more senior PM is to continually challenge product-market fit and keep the team aligned on a 3-6 month, mid-term vision, of the product. This role requires considerably more EQ on both the customer and the stakeholder management front.
On the customer front, the PM needs to be able to creatively draw out real customer needs. This survey and interview technique is more of an art than a science, and comes with experience. The PM also needs to build the vision for the product using multiple inputs, then rally your team on this vision. Major EQ needed here. The vision needs to continue to drive product-market fit, and adjustments are elegantly made along the way.
At small companies your PM at this level also handles the Shipping function. When paired with a strong technical lead who can take on the burdens of engineering team operations, this senior PM would more fully take on both competitive analysis, and pricing and packaging decisions.
- Product Vision Leadership (6 month - 2 year horizon)
- Product Portfolio Management - Making macro-tradeoffs between product areas
- Budgeting and Headcount
- Build vs. Buy recommendations
- Aligning senior stakeholders across sales, marketing, engineering, finance, and HR
At this stage of the company, you are taking off. You have product-market fit and enough runway to survive 2-3 years. So it makes sense for your PM to start visioning for the 2 year mark. Don’t confuse this with the overall company vision, which is a BHAG (big hairy audacious goal) laid down by the founder that can be as far out as 5-10 years. That company vision is meant to be a rally-cry, blood-stirring, moonshot.
Your Strategic PM, usually director level or VP level, will take that company vision, and lay out the pathways that pave your way towards that BHAG. This PM will raise a debate on the validity of each of those pathways, and explore ways to test and de-risk each. For example, a decision to use cloud or on-prem deployment, to build vs. buy certain features within the product, or to invest in a new product area to win market share. These decisions move the company down a very different path, and rallying stakeholders through these decisions is what your Strategic PM will do.
- Fundraising and Board relations
- Winning key enterprise accounts
- New business lines, M&As
- Assessing Product bets
- Building an effective culture
- Organizational Design
- Product Vision Leadership (1 - 5 year horizon)
If you’re considering a full time CPO-only PM, meaning a PM dedicated to only CPO level functions and not other earlier level functions, then your company is likely experiencing rocketship growth. You’re looking to bolster your moat with product bets while designing an organization that will sustain your growth.
Your CPO will help set and reinforce that culture for your product organization. You might be courting very lucrative and strategic enterprise accounts beyond a basic customer relationship. These can require roadmap commitments and multi-year contracts. Your CPO needs to flank your VP Sales on customer visits to tell the product story, close the deals and make sure you can deliver without compromising your product strength in your market.
Partnerships from outside the company become important, and your CPO needs to bring these opportunities to the table alongside your CEO and CFO. Your CPO will take your BHAG moonshot and lay out the 5 year plan to it, identifying key product holes that you must fill with product bets or M&A opportunities before getting to the moon.
Finally, your CPO tells your powerful product story, for your board, for your customers, for your team, and helps you keep the funding or revenue flowing.