A few days back my father came to me and asked what I do at work. I explained to him what Product Managers do. I told him that Product managers are responsible for guiding the success of a product and that they lead the cross-functional team that is responsible for building, scaling, and supporting it.

However, as I was explaining to him, I understood that this textbook definition doesn’t offer many insights. I was looking for good examples and analogies and then struck me.

I told him this:

“What a Director is for a Movie, Product Manager is for a Software”

In the rest of the article, I will be drawing several parallels between the Directors and Product Managers for those who are new to the world of Product Management. This is just a thought experiment that I came up with while watching my dad producing a new music video.

🏠 Background

My father runs a humble video production house in my hometown — Jhansi. It was started 35 years back as a music label and slowly it transitioned from an audio-cassettes business to an MP3s/VCDs business and eventually into a digital media business.

He produces and directs music video albums in regional languages with a collection ranging from devotional songs and bundeli short movies to folklore and folk dance. Following are few pictures of my father in action.

(Fun fact: His YouTube channel has over 3 million subscribers)

Okay, so coming back to the topic of discussion. Let’s start with the basics.

🎦 What is Cinema?

Cinema (unlike drama) is a technology-created art form. There are many things involved in making a movie including screenwriting, casting, makeup, costume, acting, cinematography, choreography, music, visual effects, sets, and whatnot.

All these departments have their own set of nuances. Cinematography, for example, involves lighting, composition, camera motion, camera angle, lens choices, depth of field, exposure, etc.

🎬 What does a Film Director do?

Directors create the overall vision through which a film eventually becomes realized or noticed. They supervise the work of all the departments throughout the different stages of film production. The entire movie is playing in the Director’s mind.

As I started to think about it, I could draw several parallels between film directors and product managers. In many ways, product managers are like movie directors.

🤹🏻 What is Product Management?

A product (software) is a solution to a common problem shared across multiple customers. The goal of product management is to create products that solve the problems of customers (or users) in a way that creates value for the organization. The product manager is the voice of the customer inside the business and is passionate about customers and the specific problems they’re trying to solve.

Now, that we have covered the basics, here comes the interesting part.

👬🏾 Similarities between Directors and Product Managers

🔀 Cross-functional role

Good directors understand what emotions they want the viewers to feel while watching the film and bring them to reality using the skills of the actors, the DP, the production designer, the music composer, and all the other people whose work is needed to make a film.

Like Directors, Product Managers work with many different teams such as tech, design, sales, marketing, customer support, and operations. Each team has different skill sets and goals and it’s the product manager’s responsibility to manage all the stakeholders and ship products that are valuable, desirable, and feasible.

🛠️ Tools and techniques

Directing involves understanding the tools available to tell a story and an instinct of how and when to use them. Great Directors like Christopher Nolan find groundbreaking ways to upend everything we know about nonlinear storytelling (when events in the story appear out of chronological order), crosscutting scenes (alternating two or more scenes that often happen simultaneously but in different locations), insert shorts (shots containing visual detail that is inserted into the scene for informational clarity and dramatic emphasis), etc.

Similarly, Product Managers employ several techniques and design patterns to nudge users to do the desired actions. Some common examples include A/B testing, lazy registration, infinite scrolling, carousels, gamification, instant gratification, variable rewards, etc. Jonathan Badeen, the founder of Tinder, invented ‘swipe right to like’ to accomplished two things at once: navigating and decision-making.

🗣️ Communication

Good product managers, like good directors, are great communicators. This is an important skill set for both roles and they involve a lot of stakeholders and cross-team collaboration.

According to some studies, roughly 40% of US top 100 grossing films in recent years were written by Directors themselves. Similarly, Product Managers write the product requirement documents (PRD) after doing user research, interviews, competitive research, conceptual planning for product ideas, and wireframing.

⏳ Working under constraints

Product Managers like Directors have to work under constraints of schedules and budgets. They have to constantly make tough decisions such as:

Should we build X or Y? (PM) / Should we shoot at location A or B? (Director)

Should we reiterate the design? (PM) / Should we retake the scene? (Director)

OK, enough about similarities, let’s talk about some differences between the two worlds.

🤷🏻‍♂️ Differences between Directors and Product Managers

🔄 Iterations

Most software companies use an agile software development process, which encourages an iterative approach to building products so that organizations can quickly respond to feedback and build products that customers love. Rapid iteration allows product managers to learn and act on feedback quickly. They can do a lot of experiments and A/B tests to figure out what works best to achieve the desired outcome from the product.

Unfortunately, this is not the case with film production. Directors only have one chance. Once the movie hits the box offices, you can’t go back and make iterations to improve it.

📈 Data-driven decision making

The agile (iterative) development environment of software products and the digital nature of these product allows for a more data-driven decision making compared to movie making.

Analysis of product usage metrics gives a lot of actionable insights about a product’s adoption, engagement, retention, and monetization. Great product managers combine quantitative data with qualitative customer insights to make meaningful decisions.

OK, we are nearing the end of this blog. I just have one last thing to share with those who aspire to become a PM.

👨🏻‍💻 How does one become a Product Manager?

Going back to our comparison between directors and product managers, there are many pathways to becoming a product manager — as is the case with directors.

Some directors start as screenwriters, some as cinematographers, some as producers, and some as actors. Likewise, product managers often start their career as software engineers or designers or data analysts or operations managers, etc, and later transition to Product roles.

I don’t know much about film schools but I know that most of my favorite Directors including Christopher Nolan, Quentin Tarantino, and Anurag Kashyap are self-taught. Likewise, joining a business school is not necessary to venture into product management. However, it depends on context, just like any other product decision!