Exploring Product Management: Our PMP Experience (Part 1)

Self-introduction

Hello everyone! The four of us - Cher, Yaya, Gaen, and Mil, are currently in the role of Associate Product Managers at LINE MAN Wongnai. We are part of the first batch of the Product Management Program, known as Product Management Program (PMP).

After working for some time, today we want to share our experiences and answer questions that we believe will be beneficial for those interested in the field of Product Management and the PMP.

Firstly, for many, when they hear the term “Product Manager”, they associate it with a tech-related career that requires a specific educational background. However, in reality, individuals from various academic backgrounds can excel in this role. Our PMs come from diverse educational backgrounds, including Engineering, Accounting, Economics, Liberal Arts, and even Fisheries.

The four of us come from different academic backgrounds as well. Yaya graduated from the Faculty of Engineering, majoring in Information and Communication Engineering. Cher and Mil graduated from the Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, while Gaen graduated from the School of Integrated Innovation (BAScii).

Explain PM from a Non-Tech Education Background

If we were to explain briefly, a PM is someone who creates product strategies and roadmaps to meet business objectives while managing limited resources. For example, in LINE MAN Wongnai, we offer a variety of products, including customer-facing applications – the LINE MAN app, which covers Food, Mart, Messenger, and our latest Service, Transportation.

We also provide riders' applications, merchants' applications, and other services that act as a backbone of the application such as Ads, Productivity, Search, or Wongnai POS.

In the role of a PM responsible for the customer side (the LINE MAN app), we would find that numerous challenges such as new features waiting to be developed, inconveniences between riders, restaurants, and customers that need to be resolved, or business strategy need to be executed. As PMs, we have to think about how to develop the product to address these challenges or help the company achieve its goals.

What do PMs really do then?

From the overview of a PM role mentioned above, if we break it down into day-to-day responsibilities and what really happens before releasing a product, it would look like this

Understanding the Problem

• Before kicking off any projects, it is crucial for you to deeply understand what the issue is so you can pinpoint the right focus areas. We typically employ various methodologies to thoroughly understand the problem from different perspectives such as interviewing users or analyzing data to suggest areas we could improve on.

Finding Practical Solutions

• We then take that information to brainstorm the possible solutions which usually come in the form of new features or improvements on existing products. These ideas will be taken into discussion with relevant stakeholders such as marketing, operations, legal team, and others. If the solutions require any visual changes on the application, we collaborate with UX/UI to discuss the functionalities so that they can craft a design that ensures a seamless user experience.

Turning Ideas into Requirements

• And now it is the process where we transform our vision into concrete requirements which involves a lot of discussion with the engineering team to explore technically feasible solutions and evaluate resources to be used. We could end up with multiple captivating options and their own set of trade-offs for example, imagine you want to have a promotion code for users
• System A will allow the operations team to create one promotion code at a time but takes the engineering team only 2 weeks to develop
• While System B supports bulk operation that could save a lot of time but takes a whole month to develop

Which one would you choose then? The answer for me is there’s no such best option but it all depends on what you are willing to trade. If this promotion project is just a laid-back experimental phase or there are other high-priority tasks in the product pipeline, we might want to roll with option A, allowing us to efficiently utilize limited resources.

Ongoing Communication

• In actual practice, there is no strict sequence that needs to be followed. We often engage with all stakeholders along the way to ensure a cohesive alignment of functionality, design, and technical solutions. It is usual for challenges and questions to arise later on due to technical limitations especially when it comes to adjusting design or requirements.

Measuring Success

• In addition to product development, PM also works collaboratively with the Business Intelligence team to prepare how we measure the success of the product and monitor its progress closely after release. This helps us decide on what changes are necessary - be it adjusting the design, expanding target groups, or updating product strategy.

In a nutshell, the Product Manager engages with various teams throughout the entire product development lifecycle. The focus extends beyond just the mere creation of a product; we all aim to craft operational-efficient products and user-centric designs, using a way of implementation that optimizes utilities in our ecosystem.

At this point, you might wonder what skills are genuinely crucial for being a PM. No worries, we summarized the top three essential skills which are

1. Problem-solvingThe main responsibility of PM is to resolve all various challenges around us by analyzing market needs, user feedback, and business data to find out the best solution for them. So, this role is suitable for those who enjoy and feel enthusiastic about encountering the problems.
2. TechnicalIn this context, ‘technical’ doesn’t mean that PM needs to code or have a direct background in the technical field. However, it is undeniable that PMs need a certain level of technical knowledge to make decisions. Additionally, PMs work closely and directly with engineers, so understanding the fundamentals is highly beneficial.
3. CommunicationAnother indispensable skill for a PM is being an effective communicator and listener. Since PMs collaborate with diverse teams that have different backgrounds and focus points, strong communication and listening skills are important for explaining goals, objectives, and solutions to teams and other stakeholders. Moreover, understanding their thoughts is key to analyzing and deriving the best solutions for all parties involved.

Stay tuned for Part 2 of our series! We'll dive into how our PMP differs from a PM role, and discuss how to determine if a PM position is the right fit for you. Coming soon!

Interested in learning more about our Product Management Program (PMP)? Visit https://careers.lmwn.com/ for more details.