You are what you do — why Product Managers end up Project Managers

Photo by Manh Phung on Unsplash

Transitioning into product management can feel like being air-dropped into a war zone. From the moment you hit the ground there are new people and ideas bombarding you from every angle, and everything seems to be on fire. There is no clearly defined way to reach your destination, but you know you can’t just sit there. For most new product managers starting out, this is a critical moment for your career and the habits you build out as a product manager.

But…why project managers?

That’s a great question! One of the most difficult things about product management is figuring out your responsibilities, and the responsibilities of others. Project management in particular has a high degree of overlap, and it doesn’t help that most companies still view the two roles similarly.

I frequently see product people fall into the trap of either doing someone else’s job, or mistakingly spending too much time on tasks that don’t actually help move the product forward. Below I’ll cover some common pitfalls I’ve encountered in my career that lead new product managers to act like project managers. By understanding these pitfalls new product managers will better understand the real value their job is supposed to provide.

Pitfall 1 — Never Creating or Owning a Product Vision

Let’s start with defining what a product vision is before diving in too deep. Product vision is the long-tail goal of what you want to achieve, the ultimate end-state you want your product to be. This can apply to owning an entire platform, all the way down to owning a small feature. More importantly, a product vision will always exist, even if you don’t know what it is! How?

It’s actually pretty simple, if you’ve never heard or explained the product vision to someone, it’s whatever they perceive it to be. From the day you were hired on as a product manager, your product already had stakeholders (surprise!). Sales has been trying to sell features that haven’t shipped yet, the CEO is selling features you haven’t even heard of yet, and clients were promised all this a year ago.

The underlying problem? When there’s not a shared vision, perceived vision leads to…