Product Manager Archetypes
How to match the right product manager for your projects. — Part 3
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There are many types of product managers in the tech industry today. To drive the right results for your organization, you want to match the right product manager archetypes with projects in our organization. Match them wrong, and it can derail your teams and goals.
In this series, we will talk about various archetypes of product managers:
Part-1: Jill-of-all-trades, Engineering-focused, Design-focused,
Part-2: User & Community-focused, Delivery-focused,
Part-3: Stakeholder-focused and Sales-focused.
Stakeholder-Focused
In larger companies where there are often software projects in IT departments building software for internal users/employees, often they are lead by project managers or technical product managers. They are typically stakeholder-focused as the goals for each project are set by leadership or triggered as part of multiple business and technology strategies. Senior leadership in a company would ask technical product managers (or project managers) to manage budgets to realize some vision as part of strategic discussions. These projects often do not fulfill the needs of employees; instead, they are to satisfy a combination of company objectives, such as reducing future costs, improving workflows, performing additional tracking for leadership to see how employees work, performance tracking, and expanding business footprints, etc.
Other titles for this role include program managers or delivery managers.
What type of product work they fit best:
Stakeholder-focused product managers are strong with navigating corporate and enterprise cultures. They have strong communication skills, coordinate with multiple groups, manage expectations, and have good financial and budgeting backgrounds. One of the key deliverables is communicating project statuses to stakeholders, budget, scope, and timeline.
