Hybrid Working: Perfect for Product Managers?

Why pure remote or pure office-based might not work in a product career

There has been quite a discussion recently following the announcements from a number of large employers to more office-centric roles (Lloyds Bank, JP Morgan, BNY Mellon etc…) and it resurrected my thinking about what type of approach suits product management roles?

As well as writing, I’m also a product manager within a retail company, and our current weekly working pattern is that we work two days in the office and three days remotely.

Personally, I find this the best of both worlds and here’s why:

Working in the office

• I can make small talk with the team members who sit around me. We have flexible desks and so one day I’ll be sitting next to the Software Development Manager and the next time I’m in it could be a Product Owner. As everyone is working on different things, in different ways, this is a great way to get an insight into what’s really going on.
• I can get in a room with some of my product users. We’ve got a range of products that cover externally facing audiences, internal audiences, and some technical products that run behind the scenes, and for internal products, I’m able to walk across the…