I would go so far as to say that outside of technology companies the concept of a product manager is almost completely foreign.  Instead, the &quot;small CEO&quot; is usually the business project or portfolio manager, which is often a role completely separate org-wise from the IT folks doing the work.  On the one hand, the justification for this is &quot;better business alignment&quot;, but that&#x27;s just a lazy way of justifying the nepotism and political wrangling that marginalize IT organizations as purely a cost center rather than a revenue enabler.<p>Source: spent 15 years in &quot;big IT&quot;, in roles from programmer up to senior director, and this is why I left.