Who should you report to in Product?

Inspired by a vivid LinkedIn discussion, started by Andy Raskin, I’d like to share my thoughts on product management organizations I have seen in the past.

What is Product Management?

Product Management is a craft. People say, it is a hard thing to learn and do and I like to agree. Especially since there are no university degrees in Product Management, it is difficult to say what people should study when they intend do become product managers. I got into product management because I was not really an expert or even very good at anything. That may sound irritating, but when I tried to start a career as a software developer more than 30 years ago, I managed to write code that worked, but others were a lot better in doing that. I founded a company that was reselling software, so I had to do sales and marketing, but hey, the company failed. Primarily because my sales and marketing expertise and my drive to dig deep enough into these subjects were somewhat limited. So I started doing technical support, talking to customers every day on the phone about their issues, problems, needs, and ideas.

After a few years, I realized that I was quite good at connecting the dots and bringing people together. I could understand customers’ needs, but I was not able to solve the problems — the developers had to do that. I could understand customers’ wishes, but I was not good at telling them what my answer was — the marketing people had to do that.