[Moto7451]

This matches my experience over 15 years and four companies. This is not a scientific study but I can at least concur with your experience. There are clearly orgs that don’t work this way, but I find that it’s very common when chatting with my PM colleagues. The exceptional cases have been project managers for projects that involve wide scope, multiple products, or some other factor.

I’ve also found that in addition to the Project Manager turned Product Manager, there are plenty of Product Managers forced to be Project Managers and it goes poorly unless a Development Manager is willing to carry that.

The ultimate problem is that Project Management doesn’t go away just because a company eliminates the role. The same is true for Product Management. If you’re ok with your developers or someone else doing the work, and it is fruitful, great. For about a decade I tried as hard as I could to get one of the limited Product Managers for the products I worked on to very little avail. As a result I had to guess about price increases and other functions that I, someone with 70% of a CS degree and some extension courses in business topics, have to learn on the fly each time I face the challenge. I was successful but I am sure a real Product Manager would have done a better job.

The companies I’ve worked for typically have a cynical view of dedicated Project Managers but I appreciate that this is a specific skill for similar reasons to my Development Manager forced to be a Product Manager experience.

[pnathan]

I have very rarely encountered a PM(any title) who lucidly communicated their value-add to the company. It is certain that, e.g., someone needs to assess the pricing of a product and how to position it in the market. But it's unclear that the vast majority of people I've worked with are performing that task - they are, to all appearances managing projects and doing secretarial coordination work (ticket munging), something experienced devs and managers can do straightforwardly up to a certain point.

I think its one of those roles that you don't need until product (project) scope is a certain point, but it's been glommed onto smaller companies as they mimic the big-corp designs. So it never quite works for those small shops. They really just need a Product Person, singular, who drives the thing forward, IMO.