You Don’t Need a PM to Own the Product
Most CTOs start as builders. The best ones learn how to shift.
You’re growing fast.
The backlog’s overflowing.
You need help making sense of it all.
So you hire a product manager.
And it feels like a win.
Someone to write the tickets.
Someone to talk to the users.
Someone to translate chaos into clarity.
Finally… you can focus on the business.
But a few months in, something shifts.
✅ The team’s shipping.
✅ The roadmap’s moving.
✅ The process looks solid.
And yet—something feels off.
The engineers stop asking questions.
The standups get quiet.
The demos get mechanical.
And you start hearing subtle things:
“We’re waiting on product to clarify the requirements.”
“We’ll build it once product signs off.”
“Let’s wait for product to prioritize it.”
At first, you’re relieved.
Then… you’re worried.
Because the team that used to chase clarity is now waiting for permission.
The team that used to solve problems is waiting for direction.
And you realize:
You didn’t delegate product.
You outsourced thinking.
When Delegating Product Goes Wrong
This is what I’ve learned (the hard way):
Hiring a PM doesn’t “solve” product clarity.
It doesn’t magically reconnect the team to the user.
It doesn’t automatically create a shared sense of ownership.
If the vision isn’t clear?
If the customer story isn’t alive in the team?
A PM won’t fix that.
They might cover it.
They might mask it.
But they won’t restore it.
The reality is:
👉 A great PM can sharpen a vision.
👉 But they can’t invent one from scratch.
They can only build on what leadership has already made clear.
When you pull back too soon?
When you let product “be their job” instead of everyone’s job?
You don’t just create distance.
You create fragility.
The future of your product can’t depend on one role.
It has to live across the whole team.
Product Thinking Isn’t a Role. It’s a Standard.
That’s the shift I had to make.
The goal isn’t to hand off product.
It’s to scale product thinking.
Not just in one person.
In every engineer. Every designer. Every leader.
You don’t need a PM to own the product.
You need a team that does.
A team that asks:
✅ “Why does this matter to the user?”
✅ “What problem are we solving?”
✅ “How will we know if this worked?”
A team that doesn’t wait for tickets.
A team that doesn’t wait for permission to care.
A team that sees the user—even if they never meet them.
The Best PMs Don’t Take Over. They Anchor.
The best product managers I’ve worked with don’t “own” the product.
They co-author it.
They challenge it.
They pull the why back into the room.
They don’t manage a backlog.
They help the team build something worth believing in.
And that only works when leadership stays close enough to shape it. While creating space for others to help it grow.
That’s the dance.
That’s the work.
Delegation doesn’t mean abdication.
Ownership has to stay collective.
Or it dies.
If you’ve ever felt that quiet drift…
If you’ve ever watched your team shift from curiosity to compliance…
If you’ve ever wondered why things look “on track” but don’t feel right…
You’re not crazy.
You’re seeing the gap no Jira board will show you.
You’re seeing what happens when product thinking lives in a role—instead of the room.
And that’s exactly why I wrote Product Driven.
It’s not just a book about leading engineering teams.
It’s a playbook for building teams that own the product together.
Want to get an early look?
👉 Join the waitlist for Product Driven and get Part 1 sent to you right away—complete with practical tools you can use in your next standup.
This reads like a controlling CTO who cannot effectively collaborate with other departments. What do you think the role of the PM should be? Or should it not exist?