Product management is all around us that can be found in very unexpected places. Experiencing product management on the big screen can be inspiring, educating and sometimes dissapointing if the director leaves out the intricate PM details focusing on the human drama itself. Nevertheless there are plenty of great examples that teach us lesson or two how to do product management or how great products are built. Here I list few of my favorite ones.
Steve Jobs (2015)
This is a movie based on Walter Isaacson book “Steve Jobs”. The movie showcase the drama behind product launches through the chaotic scenes before three major product launches: the Macintosh (1984), the NeXT computer (1988) and the iMac (1998).
Fun fact, those three product-led sequences in the film were filmed on 16mm, 35mm, and digital to illustrate the advancement in Apple’s technology across the sixteen years of Jobs’ life depicted.
Halt and Catch Fire (2014–2017)
HCF show could be over the top for some of the PMs, but nevertheless they depict product managment roles quite well. It shows few different PM roles and what motivate them. There is “the builder” (tech pm) who is responsible manage roadmap, deliver and reach the deadline. The “visionary” (strategy PM) who is focused on the product vision and customer experience.
Fun fact, “HCF” (“Halt and Catch Fire”) is from one of a number of lists of humourous assembly command mnemonics refering to a computer machine code instruction that causes the computer’s central processing unit (CPU) to cease meaningful operation, typically requiring a restart of the computer.
The Social Network (2010)
The movie about the Meta founder himself Mr. Mark Zuckerberg for everyone to discover how the phenomenon of Facebook all started, and what was happening as it took the world by storm. Aaron Sorkin adapted and wrote the screenplay for this film as for the Steve Jobs (2015) mentioned above. Both movies have one commmon lesson for product management: you don’t have to have an original idea to be a success. The movie gives a taste of the real-time lighting-fast #blitzscaling (coined by Reid Hoffman) — key objective of any product manager and their product that they are trying bring to the marke. When #blitzscaling one can see that content and community comes first, revenue second.
Fun fact, there is one movie star hidden behind the screenplay — Natalie Portman. She was enrolled at Harvard from 1999 to 2003 and helped screenwriter Aaron Sorkin by providing him insider information about goings-on at Harvard at the time Facebook first appeared there.
Westworld (2016-)
A show that dissects humanity inspired by the original Westworld made and written by Michael Crichton in 1973. TV series presents a veritable buffet of existential themes fit for the deepest thinking humans. Westworld reveals to the trained product manager eye that an authentic experiences are the ultimate human pursuit. Even if people are willing to hand themselves over to technology, emotional connections will always trump facts. This is so meta.
You are the perfect instrument, the ideal partner, the way any tool partners with the hand that wields it.
Fun fact:
“These violent delights have violent ends” (Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet).
The Founder (2016)
The story of Ray Kroc who turned two brothers’ innovative fast food eatery, McDonald’s, into the biggest restaurant business in the world. There are plenty of product lessons in this movie for every new founder. Lesson number one: find what doesn’t work and fix it. In the movie ‘speedy service system’ is introduced to cut down the times taken to make food by changing from delivery on plates to disposable paper bags, had people walk up rather than serving staff attend them in their cars etc. Next lesson: solve customer problems. when product provides what customers need, it doesn’t have to convince customers and look for them. Supply of the right product creates demand. McDonald’s was made drive-in to serve the high-quality food at lightning-fast speed and low cost without sacrificing quality.
Fun fact, the company Kroc worked for prior to founding McDonald’s, Prince Castle, still exists, and supplies McDonald’s with much of its equipment.
The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (1981)
“The standard repository for all knowledge and wisdom in the universe” (#XLII).
Fun fact, it all started in #Europe when Douglas Adams in the early 1970s was backpacking around the continent with a copy of “The Hitch Hiker’s Guide To Europe”. As PM sometimes you need that one ultimate answer to all the problems of men, users, stakeholders, Life, the Universe, and Everything. The movie about one the funniest-sounding two-digit numbers.
“A completely ordinary number, a number not just divisible by two but also six and seven. In fact it’s the sort of number that you could, without any fear, introduce to your parents.”
