After some practice, the whole product design pattern is part of what defines a designer in my mind. I learnt the pattern from class works and Google Ventures. That is, finding the problems, ideating solutions, deciding, producing and etc.
This recalls me something I heard before. Somehow I know a person works for MS for years. Once when we talks about internship in MS, he mentioned something interesting. He said there were only positions for develops in the internship program of MS until 2 or 3 years ago. Then, things changed.
In that year's internship, one guy came up an idea during a presentation. He felt that the current way to present was somehow hard to control, so that he scripted a little shell program to help control. I am not aware of the detail but I image it to be a feature like how you can control your slides during presentation. This small program is recognized by the company. It even became a product for customer later. After that, my friend said, MS internship adds one more type of position: Program Manager.
I am not sure how much accurate the story was when my friend told me that, and how much accurate it is when I restate it here. Yet, I deem that the main idea is true. After a quick search online it confirms me that part of the role of PM is help design the product. So think about it. On of the largest corporations in the industry adds a kind of position in their internship program, because a small design works! What a success for the designers!
Bibliography:
The Product Design Sprint (Google Ventures)
https://library.gv.com/the-product-design-sprint-diverge-day-2-c7a5df8e7cd0#.8cszo95ps
What is it like to be a program manager intern at Microsoft?
https://www.quora.com/What-is-it-like-to-be-a-Program-Manager-intern-at-Microsoft
