Have you ever experienced explanatory paralysis when trying to explain [[Product Management]] to your parents, relatives, friends or just any person in General? We are in the same boat
It’s understandable if your thoughts stall as you’re forced to compress a highly nuanced role into something digestible for your audience.
Ironically, this exercise is part of the job: explaining an idea differently to various audiences (executives, department heads, stakeholders, customers, and engineers).
I’ve gathered some ideas for you to use.
While you can always say, “I work with computers,” to escape the situation or, if you want to be enigmatic, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.” But if you’re in the mood to explain, here are some pointers.
To Your Parents
Let’s start with the hardest one. They have the patience to listen to you, so let’s take the liberty of framing it as a story.
Imagine Dad wants to cook lunch. Mom has strict instructions on using the utensils and equipment, and she’s concerned things will go wrong. Grandma wants a specific dish, and your sister wants something else entirely.
So, I step in. I get everyone to agree on what to cook. I assure Mom that we’ll follow her process and everything will be fine. I make the ingredients available and supervise from a distance to ensure her process is followed, keeping Grandma, Mom, and your sister updated on our progress. Meanwhile, I help Dad get any resources he needs, making sure he doesn’t face any bottlenecks. When the dish is ready, I serve it, check that everyone is satisfied, and gather their feedback. If the feedback is good, everyone else takes the credit; if it’s bad, it’s all my fault.
Same thing I do at my organization, only that instead of cooking dish, it is building software, and just like in the case above, no one is answerable to me, but I am answerable to everyone.
To that older relative “You know Facebook and WhatsApp, right? Remember when you couldn’t send stickers? A product manager figured out that users like you would enjoy that feature, so they had it built. I do the same kind of job for my company.”
To engineers who haven’t worked with PMs “You know how you’re constantly bombarded with new requests and urgent change orders? I act as a filter. I work with stakeholders and customers to prioritize what’s important, protecting you from distractions so you can focus on building.”
To a anyone else in a corporate role “I tell the engineers what to build and leadership what we won’t build. This helps us focus on improving the product to create more happy customers.”