Product Management
Product Management is strategically driving the development, market launch, and continual support and improvement of a company’s products.
Product Manager
Product manager is strategic in practice and “focused on the long-term vision for the product, on observing trends in the marketplace, on identifying new potential outcomes or themes to be supported by the product, on supporting the sales/adoption of the product, and on ensuring the product meets the needs of the value streams the product is involved with.” A product manager is the person who identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality.
- Long-term strategy
- Product vision
- Market trends
- Identification of new opportunities
A Product Manager is typically involved in
- Product marketing
- Supporting product sales
- Budgeting
- Long-term envisioning
- Customer care
- Supporting the solution-delivery team
Product Manager responsibilities
Specific responsibilities vary depending on the size of the organization.
- In larger organizations, for instance, product managers are embedded within teams of specialists. Researchers, analysts, and marketers help gather input, while developers and designers manage the day-to-day execution, draw up designs, test prototypes, and find bugs. These product managers have more help, but they also spend more time aligning these stakeholders behind a specific vision.
- On the flip side, product managers at smaller organizations spend less time getting everyone to agree, but more time doing the hands-on work that comes with defining a vision and seeing it through.
Broadly speaking, though, a good product manager will spend his or her time on a handful of tasks
- Understanding and representing user needs
- Monitoring the market and developing competitive analyses
- Defining a vision for a product
- Aligning stakeholders around the vision for the product
- Prioritizing product features and capabilities
- Creating a shared brain across larger teams to empower independent decision-making
