What is product management?

Have you ever ordered groceries from your smartphone and wondered how intuitive the app was? Or ever watched your favorite cricket league on a streaming app and just loved the user experience.

In the last couple of decades, technology has become an integral part of our daily life. And companies are leaving no stone unturned in delivering an enriching digital experience to their consumers. Different teams inside a company come together to add a feature (or build an app) which can solve their users' pain points. And the person who strategically glues all these teams together in a product life cycle is the product manager.

Who is a product manager and what is product management?

The most common (and technical) definition you are going to find on the internet is, Product Manager is a person in an organization who serves at the intersection of user experience, technology and business. However, truth be told there is no one mutually agreeable definition that could describe a Product Manager's job accurately. Different companies have their own way of defining this role. And, from a bird’s-eye view the Product Manager is the one who drives the product development, plans its market launch, is on the strenuous journey of figuring product improvement areas and most importantly stands for the voice of the customer in the organization.

This complete process of strategically overseeing, owning the vision by driving the product life cycle is known as Product management. The concept was first conceived in the United States around the 1930s when a marketing manager at Procter & Gamble came up with an idea of a “brand man” - a dedicated employee to own and manage a specific product instead of performing a traditional role in the company. Since then the concept of Product Manager slowly picked up across industries and became mainstream as technology companies gained prominence.

What does a Product Manager do and which skills are required to be a Product Manager?

Depending upon the industry and size of the company the roles and responsibilities of a Product Manager can differ significantly. In some companies, a PM needs to dedicate time to only a handful of important tasks while in another company the PM might need to do some of the legwork. Yet there are some tasks that all Product Managers need to perform -

1.     Understanding the customer’s needs (and pain points) and voicing them during the product development process

2.     Defining the product vision and coming up with the relevant goals

3.     Aligning relevant stakeholders on the product vision

4.     Prioritizing features and capabilities in the product roadmap

5.     Monitoring market trends and routine competitor analysis.

In order to do the aforementioned tasks a Product Manager needs to have some indispensable skills to effectively carry out the day to day responsibilities. Few of them are:

Strategic thinking - A Product Manager should be able to meticulously chalk out the development plan of a product and prioritize high potential ideas using relevant frameworks. The PM should also actively take a role in helping the team to come up with good strategic decisions.

Storytelling - A product manager also needs to take the role of a salesman for the customer. As the product manager should be able to use storytelling skills to convince various stakeholders on the idea worth its salt.

Detail Oriented - In order to become an effective Product Manager, having an eye for detail is paramount. It helps the team to remain outcome oriented by continuously staying focused on the important details, by predicting and fixing the right issues as early as possible.

Empathy - No Product Manager can be successful if they lack empathy. A sense of empathy towards all the relevant stakeholders (work pressure on the team members, planned business goals by management et al) not only helps the Product Manager in aligning everyone towards a common goal but also helps in maintaining a transparent channel of communication.

Collaboration - We might have heard of a Product Manager that sits at the junction to engage with various departments and teams on a regular basis. None of these people report directly to the Product Manager but the PM needs to align them in such a way that the scheduled progress goes unhampered.

Technical skills - No matter in which industry you are working in, it will have a strong work expectation to be in sync with technology. Technical skills facilitate a Product Manager to be self reliant, understand data, resolve technical conflicts, and track the product development better.

Business savvy - Business skills simply encompass you to understand the model dynamics of the product you are working on. Figuring CAC, unit economics, RoI of features will be easy for you if you have a strong business sense as you’d be better placed to evaluate product prioritisation goals.

What has Product Management become so mainstream nowadays?

A Product Manager plays a pivotal role in the development and launch of new products and aims to provide a seamless experience for the users. But what has made Product Management roles so mainstream in the past couple of years is the advent of technology and its direct (and indirect) impact in the industries.

Now more than ever, companies are trying to make a dent in the market by newer and better solutions which in turn is uprooting the established players (or at the very least are carving out a niche for themselves). In these fast changing scenarios it’s imperative for (almost) all the companies to develop an understanding of the target audience and create a tailored solution for them (and adapt as the user needs evolve). Hence, in order to tackle the challenges unique to each product it’s critical for companies to employ Product Managers who can drive their product goals.

What are the typical Product Management roles currently being offered in the market?

Based on the type of industry and company you are working for, the roles and responsibilities of a Product Manager can differ. Depending upon the type of product / service industry, a Product Manager role can be on a B2B or B2C product.

B2B Product Manager - If you have experience of working in a B2B domain, there are high chances to be hired as a B2B Product Manager. Products developed by Product Managers here need a very deep understanding of the buyer persona as well as the user persona. There could be multiple user groups involved as the buyer for a B2B product could be different from the user of a product. Also, the pricing for B2B products is nuanced as the cost of acquisition and sales cycles required to close a B2B sale could be high.

Several internal and external stakeholders need to be involved and won over, even before the Product Manager can start tailoring the product. B2B PMs have to work closely with Sales teams as they need to have visibility on the sales pipeline along with the existing customers.

B2C Product Manager – It is the most common type of Product Management jobs. Depending upon the company’s vision, the product manager may need to cater to personas ranging from a few to many. Here understanding the customer pain point befittingly and prioritizing them effectively are the two most important aspects. Also, the improvement and updates in the product are relatively fast paced. B2C PMs have to develop a strong sense of user delight and user expectations without the direct access to end users early on.

B2C Product managers work more with the marketing teams to understand top of the funnel user journeys and the user adoption, first interactions with a B2C product could be direct and natural.

Depending upon the skill set you possess and the team you are working for, Product Managers can be categorized as below:

Growth Product Manager - A Growth Product Manager generally works closely with the marketing team and is primarily focused towards the metrics which define the growth of business. These Product Managers are experts in managing short-term A/B tests and defining the go-to-market strategies.

Technical Product Manager - A Technical Product Manager needs to have a sound engineering background and be well versed with architecture of the product. They often work closely with the tech team to improve the product’s integration flexibilities and make it platform first.

This role is most suitable for candidates who start as an engineer and then transition into Product management.

Data Product Manager - These Product Managers love to work with data and uncover those hidden nuggets of insights. They work closely with data scientists and analytics teams to come up with approaches to track the customer interactions and define correct criteria to measure the success of a product.

Conclusion‍

Product Management roles are in-demand roles in all industries where you get a chance to act as a specific generalist, work regularly with multiple teams and launch products (or features) which have the potential to improve the top line or bottom line for the organisation.

If you love uncertainty and have a passion to solve challenging problems, this role has been made for you.

To explore a Product Improvement career, apply for a PM School program cohort.