I see PM core responsibilities as:
1) Represent the user
2) Champion business case
3) Make sure everyone around project is heard, bought in and happy
4) Help project converge on deadline
Others can do this work, too! Ultimately, PM fills whatever team gaps exist to achieve (4)
1) Represent the user
2) Champion business case
3) Make sure everyone around project is heard, bought in and happy
4) Help project converge on deadline
Others can do this work, too! Ultimately, PM fills whatever team gaps exist to achieve (4)
You don’t *have* to have a PM on a project; anyone can own these responsibilities. However, it’s rare to find designers / engineers who want to specialize in this exact set of skills, especially #3.
At @figmadesign we didn’t have PM’s for a long time. It was mostly fine and projects still finished, but there was high variation in the end around how happy the team was. Building a PM team helped make the process much more smooth.
I’ve been talking all this time about bringing on IC PM’s. Bringing on the right product leader is incredibly helpful, too. When @yuhkiyam joined, he really upped Figma’s game on internal communication, creating decision making frameworks and making / sticking to a strategy.
