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A case study: Launching a product process in a project-based company

Product Management

What I wish I knew sooner in product: Lessons from the community

B2B product management

Artificial Intelligence (AI) & Machine Learning (ML)

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Martin Eriksson has 25+ years experience building world-class online products in both corporate and start-up environments for global brands such as Monster, Financial Times, Huddle, and Covestor. He is the Founder of ProductTank, the Co-Founder and Curator of Mind the Product, and a Product Partner at leading venture capital fund EQT Ventures. He is also the author of the best-seller Product Leadership, How Top Product Leaders Launch Great Products and Build Successful Teams (O'Reilly, 2017).

Martin Eriksson

<a href="http://mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/recruiters.jpg"><img loading="lazy" decoding="async" src="http://mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/recruiters-225x300.jpg" alt="" title="recruiters" width="225" height="300" class="alignleft size-medium wp-image-661" srcset="https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/recruiters-225x300.jpg 225w, https://www.mindtheproduct.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/recruiters.jpg 375w" sizes="(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px" /></a>I just got off the phone with a recruiter who somehow managed to bypass my bullshit detector long enough to actually pitch me a job that was &#8220;a perfect fit for my profile&#8221;.
First of all, stop talking about my profile you perv.
Second of all, I AM NOT A PROJECT MANAGER! Where on my resume does it say that? Pretty much every job I&#8217;ve had since college has been in a product role and I don&#8217;t even mention the word project on there!
Thirdly, after my withering silence makes you realise you’re blatantly uninformed, don’t try and wriggle out of it by offering me a Programme Manager job instead. Still not it. I know it starts with &#8220;pro&#8221; but still not it.
The cliche is that product managers say what to build, and project managers say when it will get built by &#8211; and while that is oversimplifying it slightly it&#8217;s still true.
Product managers are all about combining creative insight with data, designing new products and optimising old ones, and representing the users internally. It is inherently a creative job, and requires almost diametrically opposed skills to a project manager.
Project managers, bless &#8217;em, are all about planning, organising and executing. Not something product managers usually excel at. As the saying goes some of my best friends are project managers &#8211; but damn if I&#8217;d want to do their job.
So the next time a recruiter tries you for a project manager role &#8211; which is about as appropriate as trying to making their next phonecall with a fridge &#8211; clearly say the following as calmly as possible &#8220;If you knew your stuff, you&#8217;d know Product Managers don&#8217;t do Zeta Operations&#8221;, and then hang up. It&#8217;s hard not to keep a grin on my face knowing my little recruiter friend is digging through Google looking for some pseudojargon before they call another product manager.

core/freeform

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Martin Eriksson

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