I've been working as a product manager for a few years now, but I've never studied the question, so where did the profession come from?

Product management is a relatively new discipline that emerged in the last century, but has quickly become one of the most important functions in business today. The profession is necessary to bring a product or service to market, and it involves a number of activities such as market research, product development and go-to-market strategies. To fully understand the history of product management, it is important to consider its origins and how it has evolved over time.

The origins of product management can be traced back to the early 1900s, during the Industrial Revolution. As manufacturing processes became more efficient, companies began to focus on producing goods on a large scale to meet growing demand. However, this led to the problem of companies producing the goods they thought customers wanted without understanding their needs. This is where the concept of market research first emerged, when companies began to conduct surveys and collect feedback from their customers to better understand what they wanted.

Brand Man

It wasn't until the 1930s that something similar to product management began to emerge. This was partly due to the rise of consumer products companies like Procter & Gamble and General Mills, which were focused on developing products that appealed to the mass market.

Invariably in all the materials I reviewed about this story, a memo published by Neil H. McElroy, then a director of Procter & Gamble, was cited as the beginning of everything. In this 800-word memo, McElroy justified the hiring of some employees for a function he called "Brand Man." Among the tasks of the Brand Man mentioned was what he called product management.

HP

McElroy later became Secretary of Defense and worked as a consultant at Stanford, where he influenced two young entrepreneurs. They were Bill Hewlett and David Packard, the founders of Hewlett-Packard.

Bill and Dave were trying to bring the decision-making process as close to the customer as possible so that the voice of the customer could be heard. They decided to put together a unique organizational structure in which each product group had to be a separate organization responsible for its development, production, sales, and marketing.

Toyota

At the same time, Taiichi Ono and Eiji Toyoda, directors at Toyota, developed the TPS (Toyota Production System), based on the Just in Time principle. The main task of the company was to align the production process with the needs of the market, while ensuring minimum production costs. This was based on two principles:

- Kaizen: continuous improvement of the business.

- Genchi genbutsu: going to the source and discovering the facts to make the right decisions.

But why is it so important? Because when this concept appeared in the West, the first company to introduce it was none other than Hewlett-Packard.

McElroy's teachings and TDS allowed the company to stand out on the market by applying concepts such as having a brand manager who is extremely close to the customer and who is their representative in the company.

Intuit

Up until now, the whole story had been told with "non-tech" products, but in the 1980s that all changed. Companies began to adopt more sophisticated product development processes and the first company to experience this was Intuit, a company founded by Tom Proulx and Scott Cook (a former P&G employee).

They were developing and selling a product that was financial software for housewives, not financial experts.

To give you an idea of Intuit's innovation, they had a program called "Follow me home," where they would go into their customers' homes to see how they were installing the software and get input on how to improve the product.

The main change that happened during this time was that products became very complex, so it was just not realistic for a brand manager to do everything, so brand managers focused only on the product began to appear.

Microsoft

In the 1990s, the development of the Internet and e-commerce led to new opportunities and challenges. As we know, if you shake the tree in Silicon Valley, 3 technology companies that tried to revolutionize the world would fall. Most of these companies relied on Intuit's success in their endeavors. One company that has been extremely important in this story is Microsoft.

The reason is that unlike other companies in which the brand manager was focused on the product, Microsoft created a so-called program manager whose main difference was that he was a translator between the customer and the engineer, so something very similar to today's PM who deals not only with business and design, but also with engineering emerged.

Former Microsoft CEO Steven Sinofsky described the role as: filling in the gaps that developers couldn't.

Agile

In 2001, a ski resort in Utah created Agile Manifesto, where 17 engineers decided to write about the approach that would eventually replace Waterfall.

This moment was fundamental to the creation of what we know today as Product Management, as it created a method of collaboration between engineers and PM's and brought UX to all moments of product creation.

Conclusion

All that will follow is a stage in the continuous evolution of how companies look at their customers, learn from them and evolve with them, increasingly elevating the product manager's role to new heights.

In conclusion, the history of product management is very interesting, and it's clear that the role of product managers has changed significantly over the years. Today, product managers play a critical role in developing successful products that meet customer needs and drive business growth. Like CEOs, they must have a deep understanding of the marketplace, strong leadership and communication skills, and the ability to make complex decisions. As technology and customer needs continue to evolve, the role of product management will become increasingly important in shaping the future of business.