WHO IS A PRODUCT MANAGER ?
Relatively the wide adaption of product management has make the product managers' role intuitive on demand, all the tech giants has specific job roles for product managers, this could be attributed to the important role product managers play in the lifecycle of the product and the product success.
The understanding of what exactly the product manager does have placed many in state of misconception there by confusing the role of product manager with other roles like product marketer.
These roles are related but distinctively different. A product manager take charge of managing the product while product marketer takes charge of product marketing.
Genuine Understanding of the role of a product manager and who exactly a product manager is, what stake he/she has on the product lifecycle, could put the company's product on the safe side or otherwise, which could serve as a guide to both product owners (Company CEO) or developers and any other members of the product team remains sacrosanct to the product success.
A product manager is sometimes refer to as mini CEO, he is the voice of the end users of the product, he represent the users, he takes charge of anything that it takes to ship a product at the right time meeting business demands and clients needs.
The primary responsibility of prioritizing and identifying what features to be adopted and which one should be dropped rely on the shoulder of the product manager.
Yes, you could say you have a brilliant set of designers, developers with brilliant ideas both their ideas may not serve the interest of the users, in return making the product witness a setback.
A product manager handles, coordinate the product development lifecycle ensuring and holding every member of the team accountable on the execution of backlog and features of the product to meet the outlined Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) as at when due.
Whether as a start-up owner or already established tech company, or as developer or any role you play in the digital product team, your success coupled with the dynamic environment you need a product manager to ensure you achieve the desire goals for the product.
Conclusion
Whether in an agile circumstances or non agile circumstances, for whatever kind of product you are developing to meet and stand the test of time you need a product manager to guarantee success.