My Journey to Product Management: Simple things that I have learnt

I joined Product Management league as a reluctant Product Owner and then moved into Product Manager role years back. I was a tech guy, a core Mainframe software developer during early stage of my career and I was an introvert.?The last thing that an introvert wants is a job where he/she needs to interact with multiple folks & get everyone aligned to meet requirements even though none of them reports directly to him or her.

So, I’m going to narrate my ride in Product Management – the interesting things that I learnt, and certain other things that I preferred to disremember.

Stakeholder Management:

First and foremost, Stakeholder Management is the most essential thing for a Product Manager. It may sound like an easy task, but it is difficult because it involves different people with different expectations and different information needs. (Have you ever created a WhatsApp group for a road trip with friends?)

When I started working, I used to send emails first to individuals before I call or meet them whenever there is a requirement.?It is the easiest way to mess your relationship with the colleagues.

To be a successful Product Manager, build amicable relationships with all the stakeholders and meet them often instead of writing emails or calling them. Of course, you need to put things on email after meeting with them as a kind of outcome documentation.?

Also, escalations might get you results but in the long run, there are better ways to manage connections especially manage someone who doesn’t report to you directly and who has his own manager. This makes Product Management more intricate but interesting.

Product Innovation:

A very common myth about Product Innovation is that to launch something new. It is somewhat true but the exact criteria for a product innovation to be considered are whether it eases the life of the end users & customers.?

Anything that doesn’t bring ease or benefit to the user or customer, even though it is a new product to the market, then it is not product innovation. It’s just a launch of another product, which will be forgotten by the customer eventually.

Product Marketing:

The product is vital to long-term success, but the perception of the product brand comes before this..!

If your product is different and innovative, then you’ll attract early-adopters in the growth stage of the product cycle and gain large market share early. If there are multiple competitors in segment, then better way to target specific audience that can get benefit out of your product. For an example, when green tea and decaffeinated teas first launched there wasn’t a large market for the product. Ordinary tea kept most people happy. By identifying one small segment looking for something different and targeting them, another profitable segment emerged.

Your product may be great, if it’s not promoted well, it may not reach the end customers no matter how good it is.

Disaster Management:

In my opinion, Product Management is not only about launching new Products but also about how you stabilize the Product after it is launched.

As the customer complaints & escalates, under that pressure how you handle the crisis with the help of Analytics and see the hidden factor, the bug that is triggering the issue, and how quickly you are able to fix the issue and make product stable - these are very important qualities of a Product Manager.

Being End User:

Whenever you are working on a product, you should always think customer centric, get into their shoes and think if you were end user of this product, how would it bring value to your life. ?This means step outside of your product manager suit and spends time with your customers and listen to what they need, how they manage their day-to-day and understand their problems so you can build products that solves them.

The goal is not to get customers to tell you your product is great, but to find out what their problems are so you can build a product that solves them. The point is empathizing with customers will result in the success of the product.

Flexibility of Product Management:

I firmly believe that Product managers need to be flexible and adaptable, ready to change at any time. If he or she is good at Product Management and successfully managed or launched at least one Product has the capability to manage all other Products in the same sector at least.?For example, in the financial service sector a Credit Card Product Manager can easily manage a Debit Cards Products and vice versa. I have seen my colleagues who successfully handled Credit Cards as a Product, and then they went on to manage entirely different Product line ups like Retail Deposits & Loan processing management without any issues. There will be turbulence initially, but that can be sorted out if you have the intention to learn. If there is an intention, you will attain the right set of skills to manage and design the new Product.

Note: I’ve noted down the things I’ve learnt as a Product Manager. This is not an exhaustive list. As they say, Known is a drop, unknown is an Ocean

Thank You

Yogesh Shinde