Great product manager joke from Art Petty (via Steve Johnson at Pragmatic):
Q: Why is a Product Manager like the Office Photocopy Machine?
A: Because when it works no one notices and when something goes wrong, everyone wants to kick it.
Heh. Heh. TANJ, indeed.
Of course, many a product manager has done the “Danse Russe” (“I am lonely, lonely, I was born to be lonely, I am best so!”), but I’ve found an interesting dynamic working as the second product manager at my company. In addition to the extra pair of hands to manage the workload, there is some reinforcement and validation. Of course there’s always the danger that that turns into “us vs. them,” so that is something to watch. But it really does help having a sanity check on team interactions, process questions, requirement prioritization, and all the other caution areas that product managers face.