Product design is often reduced to "look and feel," but in the Product Model (vs. Roadmap Model) it should own the entire experience — including touchpoints that blend digital and non-digital, such as an Uber ride (app + car + driver + pickup).
Diagnostic: if a team's "PM" is actually doing project management — chasing status, writing tickets — the team most likely lacks a real product designer, and the PM ends up playing amateur designer to fill the gap. Missing product design shows up as a distorted PM role before it shows up as a missing job title.
See also Design as a Discovery Discipline (Not Downstream Delivery) for when design should be involved (early, in discovery) as distinct from what it should cover (the whole experience).
Cagan argues "digital experience" and "digital product" is a false dichotomy that collapses once you trace a real journey end to end. His example: an Uber airport ride touches many digital and non-digital touchpoints for both rider and driver — app screens, airport signage, curb pickup logistics, payment, ratings — and product design is responsible for the whole thing, not just the screens. The distinction some organizations draw between "CX/digital experience" teams and "product" teams is, in his view, an organizational artifact, not a real boundary in the user's experience.
Из тем: The Product Operating Model