Directors: The Unknown Product Managers

Every film director should regard himself or herself as a product manager when making a movie. The movie represents the product in this scenario.
To elaborate on this concept, even though directors are depicted as the creative masterminds responsible for bringing movies to life, often times they are also held accountable for the failures of these products. If a movie goes on to attain success, everyone praises the director for doing such an amazing job. On the other hand, if the movie tanks, the director is left to shoulder all the blame, after all a captain should be brave enough to sink with his own ship if the occasion were fitting.

I believe movie directors naturally play the role of product managers, not only because they are directly responsible for the outcome of the product, but also, because they are the first to analyze and understand the target market (audiences) that these products are being aimed at, or appropriate for. So, in other words, the creative decisions that a director makes has huge impacts on the performance of a product. In addition, directors are also responsible for overseeing the creation of products from start to finish. This is not to undermine the positions of other members of the crew with similar responsibilities such as: production managers (PM or UPM), and producers. Production managers, and producers work hand-in-hand with directors as project managers that are in charge of logistics such as: hiring, budgeting, coordinating, but ultimately ensuring that the whole production runs smoothly, and the product is brought to life. 

In relation to the tasks of project management that producers carryout, I personally regard movie producers as the primary product managers during the filmmaking process. Producers assist directors in making creative and logistical decisions that are related to the outcome, and essentially the performance of the final product. Take the movie Pirates of the Caribbean for example, throughout the making of the movie, producer Jerry Bruckheimer was closely working with director, Gore Verbinski in achieving his artistic vision, which yielded a successful end product. Even though Mr. Bruckheimer was able to make creative contributions along the way, only the director is responsible, and has the foresight to eliminate shots (that would not jeopardize the movie in terms of storytelling) in order to free up the shooting schedule, and most likely reduce production costs. There are usually several product managers during the creation of a movie; however, directors are always one of them, regardless of positions listed on the end credits. In addition to being referred to as artists, I believe directors should be formally recognized as product managers as well (at least to an extent).