Chief executive officer, president, chief operating officer, and general manager are the job titles that you most often associate with the term “executive” in a company. They’re the guys accountable for profit and loss in their companies. They coordinate engineering, operations, service, sales, marketing, and other functions to produce growth and profit for their businesses. They provide leadership, make tough trade-off decisions, and avoid over-committing the organization. They do all this in the name of producing the highest level of commercial success for their businesses.
Product managers are accountable for the commercial success of the products that make up those businesses. To do this they too must lead cross-functional teams, allocate resources, and make trade-off decisions.
It follows then that product managers effectively operate as the chief executive of their product lines. Great product managers fully embrace this executive role. They take full responsibility for making sure that the company has the right product at the right time and all that entails. No excuses.
This guide contains clear definitions of the capital-equipment-product-management role and expectations. It also outlines how to fulfill that role and achieve success as a product manager.