Product Management is important because building products is more complicated than ever. It’s super easy to build products that fail it’s really hard to build a great product. Product Managers need to be able to….
Another important thing a product manager does is to identify and define what problems should be solved.
Project Managers need a deep understanding of the problem they are solving, advocate for the user, understand the business, empower design, create stability for engineers, and get everyone excited, whilst keeping them focused, and moving in the same direction.
Product Managers are in the super unique position that they have seen the product throughout the entire product development cycle. The product managers own a piece of the value stream that includes development and users.
Product Managers need to be in-tune with the challenges the product is facing across different functions and there’s no one else on the team that has this level of end-to-end visibility. Product Managers act as a central hub and they help the larger team to connect the dots.
But it’s a common misconception that PM’s are in a position to make all the decisions. PM’s rarely have any direct authority over the team. Meaning that PM’s don’t manage anyone working on the team that’s building the product.
It’s important to be able to influence without authority and guide the team to the the outcomes that you want. PM’s work with and align everybody to define what the product should do and why it should be built.
Building strong relationships is the key.
Product Managers are the spokesperson for their product. They should be able to answer almost any question about the product or know exactly where to get the answer. Product Managers keep the larger teams aware of plans, status, and roadblocks that the team’s facing. Product Managers also need to be able to persuade and secure buy-in from a variety of cross-functional teams and stakeholders – Product Manager’s don’t typically manage engineers or designers, Product Manager’s have to convince the team what they should be working on.
Product Manager’s can do this by clearly articulating the problem, why it matters and the impact. These things are tied to a goal that could be measured in terms of engagement, revenue, reduction in costs, new users or apps for rating… But you want to get the team excited about solving the problem. The best Product Managers can lead a group through a conversation and have the group reach the conclusion that the Product Manger was intending from the beginning.
No day is the same, no day is predictable. There are always things and fires the come up and need attention. It keeps it exciting. Some days might be out of the office meeting and interviewing users, other days might be going through a design sprint or working through a technical problem with the engineering team, or watching users going through a usability study, or going through a quarterly business review, or meeting with the support team to understand top issues, or getting an email from leadership asking why certain features is behind schedule and why the team isn’t working on another feature, or giving a presentation at a launch event and meeting with the press for interviews, or dealing with production issues, like when a server goes down or an iOS update breaks part of your app.
Be a problem solver, strategic, communicator, translator, company glue, information processor, fire fighter, negotiator…
1. What is Product Management?
Taking a product from idea to launch
How to manage software product development within organisations – here
2. Problem Identification
How to identify problems
When you’re building products one of the most important things is to make sure that you’re solving the right problems – here
3. Vision and Strategy
Defining what it is you’re trying to build & how you’ll get there
Business models mapping, competitive analysis, Minimum Viable Product and Key Performance Indicators can help you define what it is your trying to build, how you’ll get there and how you’ll know if you’re successful – here
4. Communication Skills
How do Product Managers get things done?
Product Managers get things done by communicating with a number of different people – here
5. Product Design Overview
Design centred product development
Using design thinking to diverge and explore ideas before ultimately focusing in and converging on a single idea – here
6. Prototyping
Turning your idea into a prototype
Prototype is tuning your idea into something that mimics what the real product will actually look and feel like. Prototyping is a great way to get feedback about your idea, without actually having to build a fully functional representation – here
7. Product Development
The second phase of the Design Sprint – Define
The goal of this phase is to create focus on what you want to achieve and how you will define success – here
