PRODUCT MANAGERS AS PROJECT MANAGERS

Kim Clark and Takahiro Fujimoto, in their Harvard Business Review article, “The Power of Product Integrity,” differentiate between “heavyweight” product managers and “their lighter-weight counterparts.” According to their research in the automotive industry,¹ many product managers are functional workers rather than cross-functional leaders. They lack influence outside their own functional area, have little or no contact with working-level engineers or with marketing, and act primarily as facilitators and coordinators. As a result, they spend much of their time going to meetings, reading reports, and writing memos.

Heavyweight product managers, on the other hand, function as the product’s general manager. Clark and Fujimoto explain: