The Cross-Functional Product Manager
Bart has been in ecommerce for over 20 years, and can't imagine a better job to have. He is interested in all things agile, or anything new to learn.
Over the past several years, the role of the product manager has expanded in all directions. It’s no longer sufficient for a PM to write a detailed business requirements document or BRD, and hand it off to others to deliver. Product managers are now expected to work cross-functionally, and take an ever-growing sense of ownership of the products and programs they are being asked to launch into the world. They play an important role in both deciding what products to bring to market, as well as actively managing some or all of the delivery.
Some organizations even go so far as to call product managers the “CEO of their product,” with the implication that they own all aspects of product delivery—from strategy and inception, to delivery and monitoring. It can be a difficult spot for a PM to be in, especially for those who don’t feel like they are trained or have the experience in leading in a cross-functional manner.
However, the tasks that the PM needs to do now aren’t much different than ones that they have always done, it’s just that the scope has gotten bigger—and the surface area of their influence has gotten broader.
As the name suggests, leading in a cross-functional environment requires collaboration from individuals from different disciplines and functions. This can mean not only engineering and design, but also legal…
Please log in or sign up below to read the rest of the article.
|
Music is the medium. Passion is the message. - Herbie Hancock |
