| You don't seem to be understanding what I'm saying at all. Let me try again. Sales managers specifically focus on sales, they manage internally and have people underneath them. Similarly, engineering managers focus on engineering, manage internally and have people underneath them. Product managers don't have people underneath them, they don't have reports (except for other product managers). It's a fundamentally different position that is explicitly cross-departmental. And the idea of product managers existing without sales/engineering managers is nonsensical. Who would they talk to in those departments then? Of course everybody tries to add value. But the point here is that product management is the only position that is explicitly cross-departmental, precisely to prevent departments from making decisions that seem to make sense internally but don't for the company as a whole. Because experience shows that, without product managers, departments often do make decisions that make sense for the department but don't for the business as a whole. At very small companies, the founder/CEO is often the de-facto product manager, but once you reach a certain scale you need to hire product managers to handle all the lateral communications and decisions, while the CEO focuses on things at the top. Does that makes sense now? |
> But the point here is that product management is the only position that is explicitly cross-departmental, precisely to prevent departments from making decisions that seem to make sense internally but don't for the company as a whole.
At non product-oriented companies, companies still have cross-departmental roles. This is sometimes a singular function (called something like central planning, pmo e.t.c.), but can also sit in cross-functional meetings for heads of departments, or sometimes there are divisional strategy teams which then meet, negotiate and divide back.
> At very small companies, the founder/CEO is often the de-facto product manager, but once you reach a certain scale you need to hire product managers to handle all the lateral communications and decisions, while the CEO focuses on things at the top.
Product Managers at large companies do not facilitate all lateral communications. They facilitate lateral discussions to and from product, for example between "logistics and product", or between "sales and product".
They won't facilitate the discussion between logistics and sales (i.e. "we need a bigger warehouse in 3 years"), or between retail and logistics ("your delivery is late") for instance (which requires other cross-departmental collaboration and planning).
> And the idea of product managers existing without sales/engineering managers is nonsensical. Who would they talk to in those departments then?
Exactly! All I mean is you can't use proof that product managers exist as proof that a company is product-oriented. I've worked in a company that wasn't product oriented that had product managers, and they still added plenty of value :)
My view is that you can have a product-oriented company without having any product managers, because product-orientation isn't to do with any of this stuff. It's to do with the company setting its primary goal to make the best product (i.e. making better things than competitors). It's the focus on building products that's the different thing, not the focus on customer or reducing silos.
As an example, an outsourcing cleaning contract company will not be product oriented, but will be customer oriented and will have an organisational structure that allows cross-departmental communication. They could also still have product owners and a 'product-led' IT division for instance.