A Product Manager and the person not in the room

“You’re the voice of the customer.”

If you’re a Product Manager, you’ve heard this line a hundred times. It’s on the first page of the handbook, scrawled on whiteboards in team meetings, and a favorite refrain of seasoned executives. It sounds noble, doesn’t it? Championing the user’s needs, making sure the product solves real problems, and staying in touch with the everyday challenges of the people who use what you’re building.

But the reality? The role of a Product Manager is far more complicated, more multifaceted, and far less heroic than that tidy mantra suggests.

Sure, we’re sometimes the voice of the customer. But in truth, we’re really the voice of whoever’s not in the room. And that is where the real challenge lies.

The triangle of priorities

As a PM, your world is often divided into three forces: developers, users, and the business. This trio defines every decision you make, every meeting you attend, and every Slack message you fire off.

When you’re talking to developers, you’re representing the users and the business. They want to write code, ship features, and move on. But you’re there to remind them that the customer doesn’t care how beautifully optimised the code is if the button’s in the wrong place or if the feature doesn’t make sense. At the same time, you’re there with a gentle whisper from the business: “This needs to ship by the end of Q3,” because many times revenue targets and market deadlines can’t wait for perfect code.

But when you’re in the room with the business, that dynamic flips. Now, suddenly, you’re the one speaking for the developers and the users. Your CEO may want to push a new feature to meet investor expectations, but you’re standing there, an uninvited guest to the conversation, saying, “That timeline isn’t realistic. The dev team needs more time,” and “By the way, users have been asking for bug fixes, not another new feature. Let’s not alienate them.” You’re the inconvenient voice that advocates for things they don’t want to hear, but need to.

And then, of course, there’s the user. They want everything right now. They’re demanding functionalities, better performance, and seamless experiences. And when you’re in front of them, guess what? You become the business and the developers. You’re explaining why the product roadmap isn’t delivering their number one request yet, and why certain things take time. You might not say it outright, but you’re essentially playing a delicate balancing game, where you’re trying to be sympathetic without making any promises. You know the truth: the developers are already stretched thin, and the business has other priorities.

Being the invisible advocate

What’s fascinating—and maddening—about being a Product Manager is that you’re always representing the person who isn’t there.

In every conversation, you have to fill the gap, speak for the absent, and find a way to balance their concerns with the voices in the room. You’re a diplomat in a constant tug-of-war between technical realities, user expectations, and business needs.

But what makes this role even more complex is that none of those voices can ever be entirely satisfied. Developers want more time to perfect their code. The business wants more features in less time. And users? Well, they just want everything to work flawlessly yesterday.

The paradox of Product Management is that, no matter how skilfully you balance these forces, someone will always feel underserved. And you? You’ll always be the person delivering the bad news—at least, to someone.

The cost of context switching

Perhaps the biggest toll this triangle dynamic takes is on your mental bandwidth. One minute, you’re diving deep into technical discussions about the feasibility of refactoring old code. The next, you’re pulling up spreadsheets and talking revenue projections with the exec team. And after that, you’re hopping on a Zoom call with users, collecting feedback, and asking them to rank their most important needs.

That’s three different languages, three different sets of priorities, and three completely distinct emotional landscapes. Each conversation demands empathy, perspective, and a clear understanding of what the absent party really needs—even if they can’t articulate it themselves.

And here’s the kicker: You never get to say, “I don’t know.” Because as a Product Manager, you’re supposed to know—or at least, be able to figure it out. Developers will ask, “What do users really want here?” The business will ask, “How will this affect our bottom line?” And the users will ask, “Why does this feature take so long to ship?”

You’re expected to have the answers, but the truth is, the answers are often murky, hidden in the tension between competing needs.

The reality of the role

The notion that Product Managers are the voice of the customer is charming, but simplistic. The reality is much more nuanced. You’re not just the voice of the customer—you’re the voice of the whole triangle. And most of the time, you’re advocating for the group that’s not in the room.

With developers, you speak for the users and the business. With users, you speak for the developers and the business. And with the business, you speak for the developers and the users.

It’s an often thankless job. You’re the human buffer zone, absorbing the conflicting needs of every stakeholder and translating them into something actionable, something that keeps the whole machine running smoothly.

But here’s the thing: That’s the job. The person not in the room might be the hardest one to advocate for, but they’re also the most important. Because without them, the triangle falls apart.

You are, in the truest sense, the one who holds it all together—even if no one notices.

And, perhaps, that’s the real voice of the Product Manager.