What is the role of a Product Manager?

If you are looking to get into your first Product Management job, you may be asking yourself what is actually involved in the role? What will my responsibilities entail and what is it that I am accountable for in an organisation? Now for me and my personal experience the easier question to answer would be what isn’t in a product management role because at times it can most certainly feel like you must wear many different hats.

A product manager is defined as a person who can be the voice of the customer by identifying their wants and needs. They can also tie these needs to larger objectives from the business and be able to show what success looks like for a new feature. They are described as a person who can inspire and rally teams to turn visions into reality for the end user.

If I was to try and break up the product management role, I would say there are 5 key areas you will focus on as part of the role, although many more functions and responsibilities will fall your way in time. Throughout your career you can have spells where you feel like you’re not actually doing any product management at all, this can feel emphasised if you’re an avid reader and like the idealism from most books describing the best process and skills for product managers to use and promote. If you take your inspiration from books, like myself, my personal advice is to take in all in context to your role and organisational environment.

1. Product Discovery

Product discovery is a fundamental part of the product management role. It comes in many shapes and sizes and there are plentiful techniques and tools to help you succeed. Maze.co describes product discovery as:

The process of closely understanding what your users' problems and needs are, then validating your ideas for solutions before starting development. Product discovery plays a key role in helping product teams decide what features to prioritize or build and helping to set up for product excellence.

What does this mean for the product management role? Well, in short, it means you will need to have or be able to develop fantastic communication skills in order to inform users about key areas of the product and show empathy based on problems they share with you. You will also have to be able to structure that feedback in a constructive way to feedback to the organisation.

2. Product Planning

Product Planning allows product managers to effectively determine a delivery and communication plan across internal and external stakeholders. This part of the role focuses on the ability to plan key deliverables with the development teams and communicate enthusiastically the customer pain points to help drive the best solution. Having the ability to create high level timelines which clearly show the key phases of the solution you will deliver. The part of the role will also allow you to unlock your creative side by going post-it crazy in person or online using tools like Miro. It is also at this point you should be thinking about what dials you want to turn for the business key performance indicators (KPI’s) and what hypothesis you have or want to create in order to measure success.

3. Product Development

This is really getting s**t done, collaboratively. You will have made sure the team(s) have a good understanding of what and why relating to the problem you want to solve and have a clear picture of the solution. Working closely with the development teams and having the ability to manage your own time, so that you are available for daily ceremonies and questions that will continue throughout the length of the solution. In this area of the product management role, you will need to be able to work with the development team(s) to gather estimates for stories and a deeper understanding of the time frame the solution will take to deliver. Expectations will need to be set that ensure internal and external stakeholders understand what will be delivered to the customer based and at what phase e.g., an iterative approach delivering small chunks that contribute towards a Minimal Viable Product (MVP) and then this will allow you to gather real life customer feedback from end users for the next phase of development.

4. Product Launch

Launching the product or feature means that you will have to work collaboratively with the right people, for example, marketing, sales enablement and pricing. You will be the driving force who provides all the critical information such as features and benefits, scope documents and positioning statements which will allow the wider team to get the market or target market excited about the super cool new function or solution. Maintaining and updating critical documentation is key to the product management role, it provides a single source of truth about a specific function or feature for internal and external stakeholders to refer to. You may at this point have a beta test set up in which you can collect case studies and testimonials to use in your marketing collateral.

5. Continuous Discovery/Feedback

As I mention at the start of the document there are many books, articles, posts and diagrams relating to continuous product discovery. I really enjoyed Teresa Torres’s – Continuous Discovery Habits book, which is also on audible. You will need to understand the methods of collecting and categories continuous feedback from clients and hold regular sessions to get a deep understanding of what users think and feel about your product. If there is no process in place, be proactive and help other product people in the business create or introduce it to the organisation. As a product manager you should have an eye on the market space your organisation operates in and who some of you key competitors are and what does the landscape look like and where would you honestly say your organisation sits. This feedback will provide insight and data when the business is looking at planning the roadmap for the product be that quarterly, half yearly or yearly.

All this information can feel overwhelming and at times so can the product management role itself. It is at times a very rewarding but difficult career to try and master. You will learn as you go in the role, especially if you are fortunate enough to be surrounded by product managers who are willing to mentor and nurture you and your skill set. In my current experience, I have always found supportive role models and mentors in organisations.  If I could leave you with one piece of advice it would be that it is ok to say NO, it is not a dirty word, and the world will not fall apart, just make sure you have the right feedback and data to back your decision. I hope this article has been useful to anyone who has just landed that dream role! Until next time, keep being awesome.

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