How can I navigate a situation where I am frequently assigned project management tasks rather than product management responsibilities, and where there seems to be a lack of emphasis on product vision and impact-based product building?

It is important to understand the product culture of a company. PM work is very often confused with project management (as you are experiencing).

Your manager is the biggest lever in this scenario - define your goals clearly with your manager (typically companies follow an OKR based process for this). Goals should be business objectives and then actual tasks to accomplish the goals should be defined by you vs. someone assigning tasks to you.

There will always be some part of project management in our roles (particularly if your company doesn't have a function for that). It is OK to have a few templates/processes for project management - like what do you use for managing timelines, getting and providing progress updates - but try to make this a 'self-service' process. For e.g. give your team the templates and define the process at the start of a project for everyone to enter their updates by xx every week and then you just share those widely. This is a good level of project management to do but your main focus should be centered around accomplishing your business goals / problem solving. I'd be surprised if you are able to accomplish the business goals via just project management tasks.

In situations where you're frequently assigned project management tasks instead of product management responsibilities, it's important to proactively address the issue:

1. Communicate Clearly: Have a candid conversation with your manager about your role and the type of tasks you're being assigned. Express your desire to focus more on product management aspects, emphasizing your skills and interest in areas like product vision and impact-driven development.

2. Define Roles and Expectations: Seek to clarify and define the boundaries between project and product management within your team. Propose a clear delineation of responsibilities that aligns with your role as a product manager.

3. Demonstrate Value: Take initiative where possible to showcase your product management skills. This might involve presenting your insights on product vision or proposing strategies for impact-based product development.

4. Seek Mentorship: Engage with a mentor within the organization who can guide you in navigating this transition and advocate for your involvement in more product-centric roles.

5. Continuous Learning: Keep enhancing your product management knowledge and skills. This will not only reinforce your expertise but also provide you with additional tools and frameworks to advocate for a product-focused approach in your team.

Well, as always, it depends. I'd say first you have to diagnose the situation and understand the root causes. Why are they bringing you tasks rather than responsibilities? Why are they asking you to do tactical, very specific things as opposed to delivering outcomes? It could be that you just have a really inexperienced manager and executive team making these asks, in which case you probably need to decide whether you want to invest your time managing up and trying to get them to uplevel their asks of you or to move on and find a more supportive, better environment.

It may also be that you do have an appropriate management infrastructure, but you haven't earned their trust or given them a reason to believe that you can operate on more ambiguous terms and do higher leverage activity. So I'd have a heart-to-heart, frank conversation with your manager and try to understand what it is. Why are they asking you to do discrete tasks as opposed to giving you higher level objectives and outcomes to drive? And then based on your answer, take it from there. If you don't have the type of relationship with your manager, where you can ask a question like this and get a thoughtful answer, that might be a clue as to some of the dynamics leading to this type of engagement.