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Be a Product Manager, NOT a Product Janitor

Blog Author: Productside Marketing

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Be a Product Manager, NOT a Product Janitor™

 

We’ve been consulting and training inside of companies worldwide for over fourteen years, and one thing we noticed is a trend. Since Product Management is often not well-defined or well understood (see the Product Management Manifesto and our white paper on Product Management versus Product Marketing for help communicating this in your company), oftentimes other groups will constantly “assign” or defer work to the Product Manager on the team. The result is that the product manager’s task list fills up rapidly with many tasks that really shouldn’t be their responsibility.

We call this phenomenon “becoming a product janitor.” Instead of working on the critical things that will make a big difference for your product and thinking strategically, the product manager ends up doing thankless low-level work that is not appreciated (and many times not necessary.)

To avoid this try applying some of the things from our book, 42 Rules of Product Management. And remember, the MOST important word that a product manager (and not a product janitor) uses is the word “NO!” For tips on saying NO effectively see our previous blog post.

About The Author

Productside Marketing

We’re the team behind the headlines, webinars, and memes that make product management sound as fun as it actually is.
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Frequently Asked Questions

A Product Janitor is a product manager who spends most of their time on low-value, tactical, or administrative tasks that should belong to other teams. Instead of focusing on strategy, customer value, and outcomes, they become the default “cleanup person” for unclear responsibilities across the organization.
Product managers become product janitors when their role is poorly defined or misunderstood. Because PMs sit at the intersection of many teams, others often defer work to them by default. Without clear boundaries, the PM’s task list fills with work that distracts from strategic product leadership.
When product managers act as product janitors, they lose time for strategy, discovery, and leadership. Their work becomes reactive instead of proactive, their impact is less visible, and burnout becomes more likely. Over time, this limits product success and reduces the PM’s perceived value within the organization.
Product managers must clearly define their role, prioritize high-impact work, and push back on tasks that don’t belong to them. The most important skill is learning to say “no”—politely, confidently, and with context—while redirecting work to the appropriate owners and focusing on outcomes that matter.
Product managers should focus on strategy, customer understanding, prioritization, and driving product outcomes. Their time is best spent defining problems worth solving, aligning teams around goals, making trade-offs, and ensuring the product delivers real value—not handling administrative or ownership gaps for others.

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