A PM's Domain

Product Managers add value to product development by owning two domains: Backlog and Process.

🔗 Product Domains

The work PMs do only becomes meaningful to users after our teammates turn it into something tangible like designs and working software. Even so PMs have core operating domains that help us drive outcomes similar to our design and development partners:

Backlog - This domain establishes “order from chaos” by distilling insights, progress, and feedback into a digestible, actionable artifact. While I’m coining it “backlog” this domain includes all the the prioritization and discovery work needed to establish a definitive source of truth for what the team is working on and why. The backlog is the culmination of discovery and it’s the PMs job to transform and curate learnings into actionable, clear priorities that make it easier for the team to focus on he right things.

Process - There’s a reason the PM’s mission is about facilitating focus: if your team’s ability to solve problems in the right way is disrupted frequently it hurts morale, creates thrash, diminishes trust, and often failure. Once you discover the ways of working that is best for your team a PMs job is to protect those practices and processes.

developers create value through the code they write and features they build. Designers create value through the designs and user insights they cultivate. Product managers create value through the collaborative processes and backlog priorities they steward.