At my employer, no one in the Product Development group is strictly a manager. Even the VP does active development (though he still is responsible for managing

At my employer, no one in the Product Development group is strictly a manager. Even the VP does active development (though he still is responsible for managing the group). Product managers function as cross-functional managers, driving both the product development and the cross-functional teams that will support the products. This seems to make project deadlines more reasonable, since my direct managers are in the trenches with us.