A company's purpose is to serve people
One of my favorite blogs is Logic+Emotion and in reading David's post about Customer Experience Resolutions, he states that "...the best results come from a culture focused on serving people" . Wow. Hallelujah. Woo hoo! Someone said it out loud.
Anybody who is or who has been in the front lines is intimately aware of this. Sales & marketing sets expectations, the Tactical team, where PM often sits, is the face to implementing those expectations. While in the front lines, if one doesn't have the support he/she need in the sales > creative > development > testing > ops > tech support departments, we let down the customer. And each other.
My job, as PM, is to serve people.
-->I serve Creative by clearly identifying the customer's requirements.
-->I serve Engineering by delivering them specs, redlines, comps, wireframes and any other deliverables they may need.
-->I serve QA by including them at the beginning of project, delivering specs and making sure they aren't squeezed at the end of the project.
-->I serve the Site User by ensuring the site delights them.
-->I serve Ops by ensuring that they get proper setup information and fair warning about shipping.
-->I serve Management by creating weekly project reports.
-->I serve the Product Team not only by implementing their product, but with clearly written bugs and clients' product suggestions.
-->I serve my entire company with each completed project launch.
I serve each customer by making them look good. What does that mean? When a customer gets kudos(from their customer, boss, co-workers, grandma, kids, cat, etc) about his/her project you know you've hit the mark. Simple, not easy.
I am constantly in service and you know what? It feels good.
It goes the other way too, I need people in order to serve people: Creative delivers the design, Engineering delivers the code, QA delivers a clear conscience, Ops lays the foundation, Management sets direction and the Product team innovates. It's all reciprocal--and that feels good too. Like a team, a good system, comrades...good folks.
Google's informal motto is "Don't be evil". Who would you be evil with? People. Same concept.
There are lots of tools that can help one serve people--email, websites, project status reports, file sharing, ticketing systems, bug systems, etc. Those are just tools, though. Attitude is the foundation of it all. Well served people makes good business.