PM

📌Project Manager

An effective project manager is one of the best investments a company can make. For many organizations, these professionals, who are highly trained at executing multilevel projects and initiatives, help companies run more efficiently, reach goals and thrive in the global marketplace.

Typically, they do so by breaking down a company's long-term goals into a process with specific parts. With a more structured, actionable plan, they're able to steer an idea from beginning stages to completion in the most optimal manner.

The ability to be detail oriented and methodical when working through a process is a project manager's bread and butter. In fact, these skills aren't only valuable for those practicing project management, they're invaluable to most any professional, no matter his or her occupation.


Credits to Master project management (and save hundreds) by purchasing an at-home course

📌Product Manager:

I write and prioritize requirements and manage and facilitate the product development lifecycle, from inception to release to review.” (Strategic work, Tactical/Execution-oriented work, Meetings, Managing others, Communicating with Senior leaders, Talking to customers, Working with consultants/vendors)

In a way, it’s almost like they’re the mini-CEO, complete with the influence, but no authority — they aren’t the direct supervisors of the engineer or designer and can’t fire anyone for not following through, and focused on the success of the product’s mission.
They need to be able to communicate with the engineers and designers in a way that instills trust and a belief that the PM knows what they’re talking about.

It’s all about inspiration, vision, and analysis while keeping in mind that it’s a team sport so you’re not going at things alone.

This position is at the intersection from where founder strategy, user feedback, development team management, and market awareness come together.

Influence strategies:

-communication
-quality of work
-trust
-helping others
-idea generation

🔰Management in a Company

A typical approach for a company is to separate out the different levels of thought into separate company roles. You have your long-term strategy thinkers (e.g. CEO), the people who turn long-term strategies into concrete projects (e.g. Product team), and the people who turn those projects into day-to-day tasks (e.g. project managers).

As a shorthand, you could define these levels of thought by their time horizons:



At each level of thought, the basic question is the same: How do we get from where we are, to where we want to be?

The role of management is to constantly consider: Am I doing the right work?

A manager is typically deemed successful if their team produces work reliably, to spec, within budget.

It is easy to see the value of management in this light, because it is easy to measure the success or failure of these goals. But management is a human problem, a squishy problem, and a problem of purpose.

Successful execution of a project should be the natural result of a functioning team. A functioning team is a team of worthwhile individuals, given purpose. A good manager helps the managed team by helping them understand the context of the challenges they’re given, and then getting out of the way.

Credits to Management Theory, Part 1: Thoughtful Management and a Functional Strategy