Should the Product Manager also be the (Pick One or More):

Designer, Project Manager, UI Designer, Scrum Master, Janitor, Architect, and/or Designer:

NOT!

Or are you Leonardo Da Vinci?

Some have suggested that the Product Manager should also be the Product Owner for the scrums. Others have also been pulling product managers into being the Product Architect, or the User Interface Designer or the Product Designer project manager or others claim the product manager is the product janitor, whatever that is.  

Of course, some say they are the “CEO” of the product.  

The only person I know of that has been able to successfully pull off that stunt of being two or three of these things was Leonardo Da Vinci.
 
When Leonardo applied for a job he said he was an inventor, artist, architect, scientist, designer mathematician, engineer, and three quarters of a dozen other things.  And he was.  But never a janitor.

Are you a rare one of him/her?

I doubt it.  

If you try to do anything beyond just being a great product manager (or asked to do more), then the things a product manager is suppose to get done… don’t.  

And the chances of product success go down, way down.

Or, do you feel like you are tied to seven horses all pulling in a different direction?

Make it clear what a product manager does do clearly to your management.  But not by using the hand me down job descriptions others are giving away.  Just because they did it that way at (fill in name of the company), does not mean it is the best way for product success.

Get a well thought out job description based on real research and experience.  Click here.

I base this job description on original research and experience which will be covered in detail in my upcoming Wiley book “Foundations in the Successful Management of Products”.