Before we can delve into what it means to be a product leader, it’s useful to clarify what we mean by product management itself, as it is a constantly evolving role. As we’ve already mentioned, product leadership and product management are not the same thing, but they are inextricably linked. An understanding of what product management is and is not will help contextualize the product leadership conversation.
As Marty Cagan, Founding Partner of Silicon Valley Product Group and a 30-year veteran of product management, puts it, “The job of a product manager is to discover a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible.” Similarly, coauthor Martin Eriksson, in his oft-quoted definition of product management, calls it the intersection between business, user experience, and technology (see Figure 1-1; only a product manager would define themselves in a Venn diagram!). A good product manager must be experienced in at least one, passionate1 about all three, and conversant with practitioners of all three.
Figure 1-1. Product management has been called the intersection between business, technology, and user experience (source: Martin Eriksson, 2011).
Business
Product management is above all else a business function, focused on maximizing business ...
Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month, and much more.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
I wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
I’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
I'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
O’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
