If you ask a room full of product leaders whether product management is an art or a science, you’ll likely get a pause… followed by some very passionate answers.
Some say product management is a science because it’s rooted in frameworks, experimentation, and data. Others argue that it’s an art: a blend of creative intuition, storytelling, and empathy honed over time. But most product managers land somewhere in the middle.
We asked over 200 product leaders this exact question during our Leader Spotlight interview series. In this article, we’ll share what these leaders had to say, explore the implications of each perspective, and help you better understand the mindset that makes for great product leadership.
Here’s how the answers break down:
- Science – 8%
- Art – 26%
- A mix of both – 66%
The case for PM as a science
For those who consider product management a science, or at least understand why that argument could be made, it’s because product management often relies on data and analysis to drive decisions. PMs are driven by hypotheses, A/B testing, feedback loops, and structured frameworks (think RICE, HEART, and OKRs).
Ryan Poppa, Senior Director of Porduct Management at DNSFilter, sees it this way: “I think it’s a science because most product managers that I’ve seen be successful have been able to take rich data sets, whether that’s talking to customers, whether it’s learning what actually comes through the product, and then making strong decisions in terms of what should be next.”
Rachel Chukura, Head of Consumer Product at The Weather Company, takes a similar stance: “There’s a lot of structure and experimentation involved. You build hypotheses, test them, gather insights, and adjust. That’s how we build better products.”
And product managers don’t work in silos; their jobs are often to connect teams together, whether it’s designers, customer support, or engineers. They have a lot of stakeholders to get on board with their ideas, which requires some data to support their hypotheses:
Jarrad Lokes, Head of Product Management at StickerGiant, says, “You have to be able to back up the products or the features that you want to build with data, because while it’s super cliche, product managers have all the responsibility in the world without the final say in what actually gets done sometimes. So you have to be able to back up what you’re doing with data to bring people on board to fund a project.”
In short, frameworks and data-driven work bring credence to the science argument.
Some interviewed product leaders referred to product management as a “soft science” — not always driven by hard data, but grounded in understanding qualitative problems and using scientific experimentation to develop solutions for them.
So, while maybe not 100% a science, PM is undoubtedly rooted in analytical thinking and experimentation. There are metrics, analytics, research, hypotheses, and experiments you run like you’re in a lab.
But what do you do with that data? Is that where the art comes in?
PM as an art: Intuition, ambiguity, and empathy
Others say product management is something intuitive and creative that’s difficult to define, let alone teach. A strong case for this is that product management isn’t something that has traditionally been taught in school.
After some digging, we found that Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, VA, offers a Marketing, B.S. with a concentration in product and brand management, and Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, offers an M.S. in Product Management.
Most PMs we interview in our Leader Spotlight series, as well as our product-focused podcast, LaunchPod, say that they didn’t come to product management from a “traditional” background. Their product management expertise comprises insights and experiences from a variety of fields and industries, including sales, engineering, design, finance, and more.
So, you can’t exactly teach product management in the traditional sense.
What else makes it an art?
Matt Kowalski, VP of Product at Uplift Labs, says, “I think the art of product management is in storytelling, communication, and driving alignment. Successful product leaders treat quantitative signals as inputs to the art of finding the best way to communicate, align on, and deliver value that makes people’s lives easier.”
Likewise, Kevin Morris, CPO at Aceable, sees other soft skills like empathy and intuition as key ingredients of a good PM:
“In a lot of cases, the best product managers that I’ve worked with have this innate sense of what works and what doesn’t work, which is really more a kind of art or creativity. And I think there’s an empathy and creativity chip that I personally get from talking with customers that I think is incredibly important, where you understand what a day in the life is like for your users.”
These product leaders and others emphasize the vision, intuition, and emotional awareness that product management roles require. There’s a certain ambiguity to product management; that’s something we can all agree on.
While the days of PM legitimacy being called into question (think of the portrayal of product leaders in a film like 1999’s Office Space) are over, PM roles still look different in different companies. So, there’s no denying that product management isn’t a black and white discipline.
The blend: Why most PMs say it’s both
The vast majority of product leaders interviewed in our series (over 200) landed somewhere in the middle: PM is both an art and a science.
Michelle Monaco, SVP and Head of Product at Wheel, described it as knowing when to follow the science and when to trust your gut:
“There are mechanics that fall into the science camp — analytics, experimentation, frameworks. But the art is knowing when to break the rules, when to trust your gut, and how to tell a compelling story.”
Vaarrun Bimbhat, Head of Product at Jiffy.com, adds that the science behind PM is in “leveraging techniques to be able to synthesize problems” while the art involves “working with[a large group of people so that you’re able to both understand their points of view as well as convince them […] what the most important things are to work on.”
The technical, quantitative side of PM might follow experiments and frameworks, but the artistic side involves qualitative analysis, prioritization, and customer awareness. Finding the balance between these ways of thinking is what makes product management so dynamic.
That’s easier said than done, of course. Many of the product leaders we interview stress that it comes from experience: years spent honing your craft.
What this means for aspiring (and current) PMs
Early in your PM career, it’s often more helpful to think of the role as a science. As Dane Molter, SVP of Navan Group Travel Marketplace, puts it, “You’re handed a direction. You’re handed a strategy. You’re handed a set of go-dos that you work with your team to deliver.”
Then, over time, you start to develop what many call a “product sense,” an intuition shaped by tears of firsthand experience with successful (and unsuccessful) products and strategies. With a good foundation, you gain the confidence to challenge standards, experiment with new approaches, and rely on instinct when data alone might not be enough.
If there’s one takeaway from our product leaders’ answers, it’s that great PMs train both their logical and creative muscles.
To be an effective product manager, you need to develop hard skills like data analysis and experimentation, and soft skills like empathy and storytelling. You need to navigate ambiguity while grounding your decisions in evidence, user research, feedback, and reviews. Over time, you build product intuition and then apply that intuition into effective action.
We’ve always known that PMs wear a lot of hats. Because, ultimately, product management isn’t just an art or a science. It’s both, which is what makes it a uniquely powerful and rewarding role.
