The Life of a Product Manager - Part 1

When we hear the word product manager, lots of things come to our minds; Product Innovation, Roadmap, Backlog, Business Driven, Leadership...etc. Yet no one understands the challenges and the struggles that product managers really pass through just to be able to deliver a real successful product. They have no real authority on the team members they are working with, they are in the middle of everything that's happening related to the product. They take the blame if the product fails, and they get the credit in case it succeeds. They have to influence the entire team around them to ensure successful product launch.

Let's Take a small Journey in a regular life of a product manager. Product managers Job usually start at the very beginning even before there is a team for a new product opportunity assessment. They start first with strategy for their own category/Product line, where they will focus? and which segment? understanding the macro-economic trends, consumer journey, behavior and insights. They try to understand what is the real job that their consumer is trying to solve, whether it is for a new product, or a refresh of current product doesn't really matter. What really matters is an understanding of what is the JOB TO BE DONE!!!

After understanding the job to be done and I can tell you this can take matter of weeks until the team really nails this one accurately and correctly as this is not just a simple exercise that can be wrapped around in a day or two. This is an extensive process where cross functional team based on research data try and answer a very important question "What does the consumer want to achieve?". The Problem usually happens when product teams start thinking of a solution before first thinking about the problem. That leads in some cases to a solution that NO ONE WANTS.

At this stage the product manager and the small innovation frontloading team understands what the Job to be done is and what they are trying to solve for the consumer. Next is Understanding the landscape and what are the current ways of solving this problem that exists today in the market. Is there a competitive product already there? is there manual solution consumers are utilizing? is there a replacement product that indirectly aids in solving their problem? At this stage, as a product manager you are not yet even thinking of your own solutions. Understanding the landscape and what is really happening in the consumer journey to get the Job done and what exists on the market is a key essential research point that many fail to do properly.

Now you start analyzing all the existing solutions and understand how the current consumer overall experience is and where the opportunities that can elevate your solution are. At this stage, several team members get more engaged as design, R&D, marketing and the product team starts drawing the minimal viable product that can be a hit in the market.

Now few issues that any product manager face, First, the design team wants to deliver the best design that can enhance the experience, yet a failure point from product managers is that they don't set the expectation from the start where they brief in detail the design team on cost expectations, and you find yourself with a design that is too expensive and even if you don't see it in the beginning, will be too costly as you move forward. But that's not the end of it, re-loops, re-loops and re-loops until you come up with a good design that matches your expectation then your next step, can this be easily manufactured?!!.

At this point in time, your R&D team steps in and sometimes what you put on the paper is not easily achievable in reality and you have to go through the product requirement brief in details. Usually, a mistake product managers do with technical teams is that they provide a solution and then the entire team is trying to solve the solution that the product managers gave because for a technical team, if the product manager is asking for this solution, then he must know what he is doing, he represents the voice of the customer. ALARM!!!!, you shouldn't provide the technical solutions to R&D / technical team, you need to provide your brief expectation in terms specifications, performance, quality, functional & nonfunctional requirement, cost levels...etc. And then based on the design agreed, R&D tries to find a technical solution to fit all this.

..... to be continued.