The case of the missing Product Manager: Why so many product companies understaff the Product team and why its a big problem.

For some reason, even "Product" companies are not immune from the trap of covering product part-time.

These are all real examples I've seen of non-Product-team members acting as a part-time Product Manager and/or Head of Product in addition to their day job: Development Manager, Head of Engineering, Business line leader, CTO, Project Manager, Head of Operations.

Some common rationales for this:

• "We’ll just have engineering cover it... The customers like what they build."

• "Our customers are doing a great job telling us what to build."

• "PMs are just 'middlemen' anyway... the business can work directly with engineering."

• "We can save money and hire later... we can't afford to fully staff all functions and this is one of them."

So how does the above show up in outcomes?

• Rework in development as what is built misses the mark with customers.

• Death by meeting to align development with sales, account management, marketing, and support.

• Lost deals because of a lack of product vision, roadmap, or roadmap execution.

• Customer churn is rising due to poor UX and missing features.

• Engineers are frustrated and burning out.

  
  

To be clear, this has nothing to do with how smart the people are who are covering product part-time. Product Management is not in any way rocket science but does require full-time attention. Engineers and engineering leaders, for example, are amazing problem solvers, but their job is to build—not to juggle customer insights, competitive research, business goals, and stakeholder alignment. Asking them to do both is like telling a chef to cook while also designing the restaurant menu, seating guests, and handling complaints.

Operations and business leads are good at what they do because they are wired to improve their own metrics like productivity, headcount, third-party costs, revenue, etc. These, of course, are compatible with Product team goals, but again, creating a clear vision and roadmap, constantly aligning and realigning with stakeholders, creating a transparent fact-based prioritization process... these are all "full-time" critical activities that get skipped or rushed.

If you're a Product company, you need a strong Product team who is dedicated to impacting the Product outcomes which will drive top and bottom line growth for you.