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.

I've seen this situation quite a bit and the single most effective way to drive change towards impact-based product building is bringing data to show the downsides of the current approach. I personally failed to drive change early in my career because I tried to debate the merits of different approaches without bringing evidence (only theory).

Even if you are to operating in a project-focused way, there are things you can do to shine a light on a better way:

• Measure the impact of everything you are building (or being asked to build) - nothing drives change like showing investments aren't delivering impact. Go back and see how many customers are using features you built last quarter. Get that data in front of leadership. Include ways you could improve the approach next time (e.g. if we spoke with 3 customers before building, we would have known X would have been a better solution).

• Get close to customers - this may be easy or hard to do in your organization, but figure out how to do it anyway. Ask for forgiveness, not permission. I like a situation where you are on a text-friendly basis with a few customers. This allows you to proactively get feedback before execution and offer this as evidence you may need to make changes. Make sure you don't let your bias get in the way here - also call out when what you are being asked to execute resonates with customers (let leaders know you are objective).

• Find leaders who knows your current situation needs to change - there are usually at least a couple empathetic leaders in any organization that see the need for change. This may be outside of the product organization - it could be a sales leader, someone from marketing, customer success, etc. Work with them to first highlight the problem with project-focused operation and show a better path.

Advice may differ slightly depending on your specific situation. A few situations I've seen where this is common:

• In organizations where the culture is more execution than product focused (typically legacy businesses)

• In organizations where leaders are making all product decisions

• In specific parts of the org where a single leader is unable to let go of the details

A few books you might read - Escaping the Build Trap by Melissa Perri, Transformed by Marty Cagan, and Aligned by Bruce McCarthy and Melissa Appel.

It can be hard to tease apart the line between Product and Project Management - especially since the role of Product Management can vary greatly from team to team.  At the end of the day, you should measure your success by the impact you’re making to the business, and to your OKR’s, not the size or type of initiative you are working. . 

If you feel that you aren’t making that impact for the business, do a retrospective to understand the root cause:

1. Really evaluate the work you are producing and ask yourself if it’s the quality the organization is expecting. 

2. Solicit feedback from your manager and from peers who you feel are making a bigger impact - let them know your goal is to drive value. Then act on that feedback - use it to improve your own framework on the initiatives you are already working on. 

3. If you’re confident in your framework and output, then communicate with your manager and stakeholders to identify additional opportunities you can take on. Volunteer to take on high impact tasks as they pop up, or proactively identify opportunities to suggest. 

With any work you are doing make sure you are delivering it on time and with high quality, and that you are measuring the results against expectation.

Product management is different at every organization and there are many organizations where it is more of a project management function. If your manager is assigning project management work - talk directly to them about it to understand their expectations of the role and share what you're interested in focusing on. Usually you can find a path forward that will allow you to do the higher impact work. If you can't, leave! There are other organizations that really value folks who can set a vision and strategy and ensure that the execution is building value for users and for the business. I find that directly communicating the issue will get you clarity either way.

Unfortunately, this is more common than not.

A solid understanding and ability to execute project management tasks is important in the overall role of a Product Manager given that part of the role is to ensure enhancements (value) are delivered to customers and the market, thereby increasing the value of your business. That means it's still critical to perform some responsibilities of project management.

That being said, the most valuable responsibility of a Product Manager is to identify and prioritize the opportunities to go after to better serve your customers/market and your business. Otherwise, it becomes an exercise of whack-a-mole, execute on a never-ending list of requests.

As a Product Manager who works at a company that doesn't prioritize product vision or impact-based product building, I encourage you to always start with alignment on the goal or objective. When you open the door to understanding what success looks like and are aligned to it, then it's about the most efficient and effective ways to reach that goal and less about execution of a specific solution as quickly as possible.

Now if you get the answer, "Because the CEO/Customer X wants it" every single time, it's probably not a good fit for your career path as a Product Manager.

This can be a challenging situation, which may have come about for several reasons such as where the organization may not value or understand the role of product management or may have had a previous experience that shifted the focus of the function to be more execution oriented.

Here are some approaches that you might try:

1. Clarify your role, responsibilities and goals.  Ideally you should meet with your manager at least once per week, and you can use this time to discuss your job description and responsibilities. Here is where you can highlight that you feel misalignment with what you’re being asked to do, and what you feel you should be doing, and you can discuss how you can focus more on product management activities.

2. Advocate for a clear product vision.  Unless everyone is aligned on where the organization is trying to go, it can be difficult to get alignment across the team.  This is another great topic to raise with your manager, or even the head of product management, to get their perspective and input in this area.  If nothing exists, this could be a great opportunity for you to step up and create a draft vision for your leadership to review.

3. Build relationships with other stakeholder teams such as sales and marketing, to review your goals, and get a view of their goals, and discuss areas of alignment and misalignment. If you are working on a draft vision, getting others outside your immediate group is also valuable feedback. You’re all part of the same team, wanting to make the organization successful, and creating connections (and allies) with other teams will help you all work to get to common goals.

4. Prioritize and focus.  This can be extremely challenging if your world is full of interruptions and conflicting priorities, but you need to focus on the activities that will help you achieve the goals you have agreed with your manager. Politely decline meetings and activities that fall outside of your area, and either delegate if possible or suggest others who may be able to take on the ask.

5. Use data to show positive outcomes.  When written correctly, goals should be measurable and come with a ‘definition of done’ and the same should be applied (where possible) to show that you’ve accomplished an ask or task.  Look to see how you can use data and examples as evidence that the work has been completed, and the impact of that work.

6. Continue your professional development. Staying abreast of the latest trends and best practices, along with understanding how others.      approach problems such as what you’re seeing, will help you grow as a product manager or leader.  It may also help you make a stronger case for your organization to focus more on product management.

Change typically does not happen overnight, but it can take efforts of individuals like yourself to start to steer the ship in the right direction.  I wish you success in making the desired course corrections!