Technology 101 for PM aspirants from non-tech background

Coming into the world of Product Management is both exciting and daunting at the same  time. The majority of people “fall” into Product Management, and each have an individual  story about how they came into the profession. In my previous blog Product management  skills are a piece of cake, I detailed some of the key skills required in the PM role. Now I  want to try and give an insight around some of the Technology Stacks that can be used day  to day.  

There are lots of tools available to facilitate the role of a Product Manager, each with pros  and cons, navigating them and choosing the right ones to suit your needs can feel  overwhelming. I have tried to break down some Product processes and the types of tools  which may aid you in each area.  

1. Strategy and Planning (AHA, ProdPad, Trello)

Strategic planning is the process defining what is needed to achieve the businesses vision.  Having a good understanding of the business vision you work or want to work for is key to understanding the direction the product(s) are heading. Strategy can help drive decisions for  investment and new opportunities. Utilising tools that are designed to aid planning and  strategy can take on the time-consuming task away from maintaining a huge spreadsheet  or other types of live documents.  

AHA is a good tool which allows you to define the business vision, mission, goals and  link them with releases across the software. This is particularly beneficial when presenting  back recent releases to the wider business and explaining how they contribute towards the  overall vision. This kind of information can really strengthen your decision-making process and get buy-in from the key stakeholders.  

ProdPad is another great tool that enables you to close feedback loops in processes,  prioritise and groom the backlog and potentially introduce a new view on product culture. The tool has capabilities which will allow you to manage Objectives and Key Results  (OKRs), share roadmaps and track customer feedback.  

Trello is described as a web-based, Kanban-style, list-making application and is developed  by Trello Enterprise, a subsidiary of Atlassian. This tool can be particularly beneficial when it comes to planning and managing jobs to be done (JTBD).

2. Research and User Experience (MS Teams, Zoom, Slack, Miro, Figma)

Research allows you to understand things like the market for your industry, competitor  information and innovation areas for the product, alongside many other areas. There are  many different types of research that can be performed such as going out to customers,  desk research, webinars and keeping up to date with industry news and changes.  Collaboration can play a key part in understanding the meaning behind the research you are  performing. Tools like Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Slack all allow you to keep in contact with key stakeholders both internally and externally. These types of communication tools  have become a more common way of communication since the COVID-19 pandemic.  

Understanding the user's experience of the products you provide is a vital part of the  product management role. Utilising collaboration tools such as Miro and Figma can really  help you visualise the user journeys and common problem themes that come out of your  robust research.  

Another area that crosses over with the research and user experience is creating Proof of  Concepts (POCs) and wireframes for testing that can be taken out to clients for visual  feedback and validation. Tools like Balsamiq, Figma and Adobe can all be a valuable asset  for this type of testing.

3. Development (Azure DevOps, Confluence, Jira)

Once solutions for the product hit development it is crucial that you can manage the  backlog and work being set off for a development team to complete. It is key that you have a  clear priority of tasks to be completed and communicated in a clear time frame in which the tasks are to be released out into a live environment.  

Azure DevOps can be used to plan releases from Epic to Story level, the Kanban approach  allows you to define the development process specific to how your business processes are.  There are built in features which allow for story pointing using planning poker sessions and  tags which can accommodate the MoSCoW (must have, should have, could have, and will not have) framework. One particular feature I like is the ability to configure the fields on the  cards created which allows for all types of considerations specific to the process such as the  consideration of data security.  

Documentation is key when developing new areas and updating existing areas, tools like  confluence allow for live documents to be created and updated by multiple users, it also  allows the information to be shared across multiple people and has an audit trail for  amendments and updates. Jira is another planning tool for development and goes hand in  hand with the documentation aspect of confluence.

Both of the tools mentioned above can be integrated into other platforms such as AHA.  

4. Launching the Product Features (SharePoint, PowerPoint)

This area is one of the more exciting parts of the process, you have your release/feature  ready to go and you need to be able to communicate the key benefits and timelines to wider stakeholders.  

Storytelling is one of the most powerful skills you can develop as a product manager,  visuals and data will always strengthen a positive release update. Using presentation tools like PowerPoint can allow you to share the story of the release/feature and WHY it is being delivered to customers at this time. SharePoint can be used to hold documentation that has been created in support of the launch, such as scope, information for marketing, key points  to note, how to enable, pricing, known issues and the next iteration.

Release notes can be useful for both internal and external stakeholders, they can be used  to drum up excitement about what is coming and act as a reminder for functionality that  has previously been launched. Some people have a built-in process to handle release notes  directly from the product; others utilise Microsoft Word and Outlook via a mailing list. To me this is one area that is handled differently depending on how the product behaves and the  target audience for the release notes.  

5. Assessing and Iterations of the Product (Walkme, Heap, Amplitude, MixPanel)

Finally for this smaller process of 5 steps I have detailed out, you need to assess the  product needs and look at what will be coming next as part of the business strategy and  customer feedback. You will also need to assess the impact the enhancement you have  delivered to the product has had in the market, and if it achieved your expectations or did not quite stack up. A whole other area of this is analysis for current product usage and  behaviours and outcomes based on deliverables, both could in turn be their own blog.

Analytics tools such as MixPanel, Heap, Walkme and Amplitude can all be embedded into your products and provide insight on usage and behaviour of your product. Each has pros and cons that you can further read about here.

There is an element of set up with all of the tools and sometimes it is a case of you get out  what you put in, make no mistake getting these types of analytics and user understanding is  absolutely critical to make positive product decisions.  

Overall, I think the tech stack depends on how you as a Product Manager likes to work. It  can involve trial and error in some cases and understanding any limitations through real life  usage of the tools. I have only lightly touched on the tools available and mostly the insight  is through my own experience. There are other areas to the product processes, and I have tried to condense the key areas into this article.

We also have a Technology for PMs module in the PM School Course. Feel free to read and then apply for the same here.