Product Manager: To Be or Not to Be

What the talk is about

Ivan Klymenko talks about the product manager profession for people deciding whether to pursue it. He came from game design and UX architecture. He challenges the idea that a product manager is a "mini CEO": the role does not set company strategy or hire people, but leads one team (usually up to 8–12 people) and often owns only part of a product. People enter from design, support, analytics or development, so growing within a familiar domain is easiest. The core job is answering what the team does, why and when, and above all saying no, since deciding what not to build is the hardest part. Most time goes into people: turning specialists into a team, negotiating with leads, keeping motivation up. He explains what he likes about the role: fast releases, quick user feedback and decisions made with incomplete data. Useful for those choosing between product management and neighboring roles.