Product Management has a PR problem

but it might not be what you think.

The following scenario often comes to my mind and may be the first thing you think of when you hear that Product Management has a PR problem:

Friend, "So, what do you do?"

You, "I'm a Product Manager"

Friend, "Oh, it must be hard to manage all those deadlines as a 'project' manager."

Although a classic misunderstanding of Product Manager vs. Project Manager we may never overcome, the above scenario is not the problem I'm talking about. There is an even bigger danger lurking than your friends not knowing what you do for a living.

Do the people you work with know what you do?

This is a challenge because, for many product managers, it can be difficult to bring visibility to your work when there’s so much behind the scenes effort no one will ever see.

Although it may seem like you're the only one going through this, it's not a new struggle, and yours is not the only role that has struggled in this area. Legal teams, IT managers, and Security teams have all struggled with similar challenges. When things are going well, everyone wonders why you're there and what you do. When things fall apart, you're the first to blame.

This problem seems amplified by some industry trends and ways of thinking about product management. There are a few categories I see companies fitting into:

1. Many companies aren't sure what Product Managers do, yet the role still exists. They might know your job description but aren’t sure what value you provide.

2. Many more companies are almost too sure about what you do, but that may not align with what you believe your responsibilities should be.

3. Others believe product managers aren't needed and push these responsibilities to engineering, design, and marketing.

4. And then there's everyone else.

None of these approaches to Product Management are inherently wrong, but if you're the Product Manager in one of these scenarios, you might wonder how to show your value and keep your job. You and I both know you do a lot to keep that ship running.

What can you do to change this?

• Share your progress: I'm a fan of having public channels in Slack where you can make announcements about the work and results your team is delivering. This can also happen in demos and quarterly town halls.

• Talk about what you do: When you meet people at the company, introductions might take up the first few minutes of the call. Don't just tell people who you are; emphasize what you and your team are responsible for.

• Be direct about the business impact of your work: Improving user experience or the conversion rate is great, but how does it add value to the business's bottom line? Quantifying the monetary value of your work (when you can) helps others see the value in the initiatives you're leading. See my post about communicating product metrics effectively.

• Share your knowledge: A Lunch and Learn is an excellent opportunity to teach others who want to learn about your product area, the improvements you're delivering, or processes they could benefit from. You could also create and share product fact sheets with the sales or marketing team.

• Engage in company meetings: Actively participate in company-wide meetings. Use these opportunities to highlight key achievements and upcoming initiatives when appropriate briefly.

• Celebrate wins publicly: Whenever a project reaches a milestone or achieves significant results, celebrate it publicly via an internal Slack channel, status meeting, or demo.

• Self-serve metrics: Whether that be dashboards in Amplitude, well-documented views in BigQuery, or connected Google Sheets that others have easy access to, making these assets accessible to the entire company provides transparency, and some of your colleagues will make it a point to check on these regularly.

These are just a few ideas about how to increase the visibility of your work. In many cases, you'll be giving credit to the team of people working with you on these initiatives, but if there's something you were primarily responsible for or a critical decision you made, don't understate your own impact. Sometimes, we're great at building everyone else up as product managers, but we're not so great at taking any credit ourselves.