The connection between product management and parenting
By: Yaniv Nisim Siso
Tags: Product Management, Product Development, Ownership, Parenting

Is it possible to learn to be an excellent product manager?

What are the skills required beyond study?

Product management is a method by which a combination of acquired tools helps us lead a product to achieve the goals we have set for it. Some of these tools can be learned, practiced and developed; but other product management skills are difficult to learn theoretically, even in the best colleges and universities.

One of these skills that you can’t really learn in school, but that I think make a product manager great, is a sense of ownership of the product. The full list of essential soft skills for product managers can be found here (link).

I’ve tried over the years to find the right way to explain what I mean by “ownership.” In my opinion, this word doesn’t quite capture the required sense — it sounds a little too crass, and not soft or protective enough. That’s why the explanation I use in front of the many product managers I’ve trained over the years is the “Sense of Parenting.”

What’s product management got to do with parenting?

A product cannot make decisions on its own — just like a baby at the beginning of its life, it needs parents to lead it.

Parents know best what their baby needs, especially when the baby is young. Apart from crying to signal that something isn’t right, babies have no ways of expressing their needs or dealing with the world without their parents’ help.

The parents nurture and teach them on their way. When they cry, the parents are the first to jump in and help, and when their body temperature rises above normal, parents are the ones to recognize their baby is developing an illness, even before he cries.

Last Saturday at meal time, my niece wanted to feed her little brother some whole strawberries. She is, of course, a good and caring sister, but as of last week she is 4 years old and her little brother is one year old. She cannot take into account that he could choke (God forbid), and it is good that her parents, who have read about the choking hazard of foods like whole strawberries, were there to stop her in time.

Alice is a loving grandmother. However, she allows the children as many sweets as they want. And in Grandma’s house, there are no limits on screen and phone hours … You cannot say about such a loving grandmother that she is not a good grandmother: she raised her own children to adulthood successfully (the writer of these lines among them). And yet, in this new digital age, Edan’s parents would prefer him to reduce his screen time and read a book instead — because they have read research that it would benefit his development.

Raising a child is not a simple thing, and sometimes parents ask for expert help: a doctor, a caregiver, a counselor, a teacher, a scout instructor. They may enroll in a class or even consult a breastfeeding or sleep counselor. All of these are designed to bring relief to parents and assist in child development, with the understanding that these experts and counselors have extensive prior experience in caring for children with similar characteristics.

Obviously, these specialists will not be able to replace the parents, but the assistance of an experienced specialist can facilitate and promote the growth of the baby and lead to success in the goals that parents have set for themselves and the baby.

Product management

A suitable product management specialist can promote your product to greater success. If a product does not yet exist, an experienced specialist will be able to help develop it more successfully. And once an existing product is having difficulty, an experienced specialist will be able to assist in quicker and more effective relief.

Are you saying other employees in the organization are not parents of the product?

Most often, company executives or owners are not product managers, even though they feel “ownership” or parenting over the product. There are many employees in the organization — like developers, software testers, operations people, designers, and customer service people — and basically everyone feels affection and connection to a product that we all promote and that we are all proud of (like a cheerful grandmother, like uncle Shmuel and big brother Sheron).

So what is the difference between product managers and the rest of the organization?

The overall responsibility is ours, the product managers.

Our role, our knowledge and our experience empower us to be attentive to everyone: to developers, to testers and designers, to customer service, and to the customers themselves. Our job is to gather all these voices, create a balance between them and make the significant decisions that will lead the product. How will we know to make the right decisions?

We product managers — who have conducted research into the product, the market, and the competitors — are the ones who know best how to lead the product to achieve the goals we have set together with the company management. Therefore, when developer X says that feature Y must be added to the product, claiming that “this is the trendiest feature and the whole industry is excited about it,” it may be a really great idea — but if it does not promote the product according to our research and company goals, then our job will be to speak on behalf of the product and prioritize the more appropriate feature, accordingly.

In conclusion

To be good product managers, it is not enough for us to learn tools and methods. We need to feel ownership and a sense of “parenting.”

So, be like a parent: take care of your product today, and think ahead for the product — what will it need tomorrow?

Want to know more?

Want to talk about responsible and “parenting” product management?

Would you like to know what the “boundaries of our role and responsibilities” are?

Want to know how to become a more professional product manager?

I’m here for you.