So, what does a Product Manager do ?
Suresh Madhuvarsu
Co-founder & CEO @ SalesTable, Driving Consistent Quota Attainment
Product Management is a fairly known role within the product development organizations. However, the specifics of the role varies widely even with in silicon valley. In addition, organizations often split the role as "in bound" and "out bound" PM making it more confusing. "If management team sponsors, engineering team codes/builds, sales team sells, marketing team gets the word out, doc team writes the product usage, then what do the Product Managers do?", is a pretty obvious question that many ask. In this article, I want to share my view point on the value of product manager for the organization.
Product Manager tries to define the What, Why and When of the market problem to help build a solution that can solve a problem for set of customers... learns in the process and refines the direction.
What / Who:
- What is the market? How big is the market?
- Who are those customers? What do they do now?
- Which products should the company focus on?
Why:
- If we don't solve the problem what happens to the customers/users?
- If we don't solve the problem who are taking the value from the customers?
- What is the long-term profitability forecast in the industry and market?
When:
- What features should be part of the product?
- What is the feature priority?
- What is the approximate feature release timeline (that makes you successful) ?
Simply put, product managers leads the What and Why at the beginning of the product, each product theme and feature definition. The When part is a continuous iterative process to define, refine and redefine the product features based on the adoption. Clearly, development teams needs autonomy on How part of the feature building and serviceability phase.
In other words, product managers help the organization to build a product that solves a customer's need making sure that it's economically viable. By doing so, a product manager increases the chances of product success in the market. Lastly, product manager avoids to create a great product that no one uses.
Product Enthusiast || Digital HealthTech || Health IT
4 年Excellently summarized Suresh !! I could not resist mapping back each of the these fundamental questions the PM need to answer, to the popularly used day-day jargon PM encounters What / Who: What is the market? How big is the market?? Market Analysis Who are those customers? What do they do now? Customer Journey Mapping Which products should the company focus on? Product Strategy Why: If we don't solve the problem what happens to the customers/users? Value proposition? If we don't solve the problem who are taking the value from the customers? Competitive analysis What is the long-term profitability forecast in the industry and market? Market opportunity When: What features should be part of the product? Product Roadmap What is the feature priority? Feature Prioritization What is the approximate feature release timeline (that makes you successful) ? Release Planning
VP of Product, Product Operations, Development, Process & Management Executive- Consumer Packaged Goods
8 年Nicely articulated! PMs overlap and interface with so many parts of the business it can be hard to distill it down to the basics. Well done.
Product Manager | Opportunist & Visionary | Wellness Advocate
8 年Good article! I've found product management has so many facets, I've had a hard time articulating it concisely! Your article does a great job.
Senior Product Manager and Mentor
8 年The Product Manager determines, articulates, promotes and champions the who, what and why for a product. Dev/Engineering determine how and in consultation with Product Management come up with the when.
VP of Growth Product Management @ Avid
8 年Great post - clearly articulates product management responsibility in general terms!