Introduction to Product Management
“The Role of a product manager is to discover a product that is valuable, usable and feasbile” – Marty Cagan, Partner @SVPG
“You would never take a trip without an itinerary or a map. Yet some people start their new jobs in product management without a clear idea of what they need to do in order to learn their responsibilities and adapt to the environment of their company. On the other hand, there are many people who take on new product management roles with some prior experience, either in product management or in other fields.”
“One of the things you’ll quickly learn is that you can easily feel overwhelmed because of the unending barrage of urgent and important things to do. Sometimes things happen so fast that you can’t even figure out how it’s all supposed to hang together. When this occurs, you may spend time on issues that don’t matter from inside the four walls of your company instead of looking at new ways to learn about customer needs or figuring out ways to beat the competition.
Whether you have an innate sense of all things product or just pieces of the puzzle, you can learn to hone your craft as a practitioner very much the way surgeons, pilots, and musicians learn their skills. However, as with any trade-craft, you have to begin with the basics, and you have to practice.”
“PRODUCT MANAGEMENT: THE BASICS
One would think that, with product management being a part of most companies, we wouldn’t need to review the basics, including defining what product management is. We all know, don’t we?
But consider this: Ask 20 people how they’d define product management. I’ll bet that you’ll get 20 different responses, or pretty close to that. As I learned in my research for this blog, many people confuse product management with product development, and some confuse product management with project management. For example, people think of agile or some type of iterative planning and development method as product management. Or they think that marketing is involved in some way, or that user experience (UX) design and development is product management.
At any rate, whatever you find, you would likely conclude that the variations in the definition reflect a problem. This is especially important when product management is inconsistently defined in your own company or in any number of companies, regardless of industry or sector. To me, this is a big issue because when groups of people with a common mission or purpose can’t speak the same language, a lot of confusion ensues. It’s also an issue when people confuse product management as a business function and the role of the product manager.
If product management as a functional discipline in a company is poorly understood and its associated practices are inconsistently applied, the outcomes you envision may not materialize.
Therefore, to get everyone on the same page, let me explain product management to you. I’ll do this by breaking down each of these words, product and management, and analyzing their meaning. Next, I’ll define product management, with a rationale for why product management is so very important.”
“WHAT IS A PRODUCT?
Products are bundles of attributes (functions, features, benefits, and uses) and can be tangible, as in the case of physical goods; intangible, as in the case of those associated with services or software; or a combination of the two. That’s a good start. But there’s more.
A product is not always a single, stand-alone item. Instead, within most companies, there is a hierarchy of products and services. A product may be part of another product or product line, packaged with a group of products or offered as a solution or system to meet broad sets of customer needs. Sometimes product lines and/or solutions are part of a bigger portfolio within a company. Alternatively, products can be broken down into product elements, modules, or terms (as in a credit card or insurance policy). Products may be built upon product platforms or product architectures. To put it simply, a product is something that’s sold”
“WHAT IS MANAGEMENT?
In most books about management, definitions generally include the usual cycle of business elements, including setting goals, motivating people, using resources, making decisions, and assessing outcomes.
Management involves the alignment of people and processes so that work can get done and to achieve desired goals and outcomes. Management does not involve “command and control” and ordering people around. It is also not intended to perpetuate bureaucracy. In modern businesses, management means that the contributions of specialists in the organization are harnessed, that decisions are made, and that goals are achieved.
If you can grasp that management is a cross-functional, cross-organizational discipline, it’s easier to understand the role of the product manager. In product management, the person who leads the product’s business is the product manager.
However, considering the multifaceted definition of the product established earlier, it is not safe to assume a one-to-one relationship between product and product manager. While that model may hold true at some organizations, as I indicated earlier, a product manager can be partly or wholly responsible for all or part of a product platform or architecture, a module or series of modules, a single product, a product line[…]”
“WHAT IS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT?
Based on the answers to the first two questions, product management is the business management of products, product lines, or portfolios, holistically, for maximum value creation, across their life cycles. Managing products is akin to managing a small business within a bigger business. Sometimes an organization has one product, sometimes it has several, as I mentioned earlier.
I find it interesting that many companies have had their epiphany and are paying more attention to the “function” of product management. Why? Because they recognize that product management offers a way to improve their former style of management. They want to focus on meeting the needs of their customers with products run as mini-businesses, that is, small businesses within their overall business. In addition, these companies are seeking to collectively manage all the products within a product line or portfolio in the same way one might manage a portfolio of investments.
There are a variety of drivers for decisions to focus on this, including poor product performance, product duplication in global markets, and even channel conflict. Reform is engendered by problems, and it is usually some business problem or challenge that leads an organization to product[…]”
Product management is, at its core, a model for a business organization. This model includes discovering, innovating, strategizing, experimenting, planning, developing, introducing, managing, and marketing products and doing it over and over, as fast as your markets are moving. In essence, product management alters the genetics of the organization up and down, as well as across business functions.
The function of product management is not a linear set of actions and workflows. Product management is not a single process. Rather, product management creates a dynamic system that depends on the work of various people and many interconnected processes across the lives of many products and portfolios. Work ebbs and flows across the life cycle, iterating, improving, and optimizing.
Does this statement imply that product management supports the entire organization? No, not at all. The system of product management touches and influences all the organic supporting structures—all the business functions. Think of the human body: product management is in the genetic material; it’s in the skeleton; it’s in the circulatory system, the neural network, and, of course, the command and control center (the brain).”
Two characteristics of a great Product Manager :
Entrepreneurial: Figure out a customer problem that you see out there and solve it. If you are technical, you can prototype it. If not find someone who can and influence them. These are practical skills you can use to showcase your PM potential
Ask for opportunities: If your current organization has a product team, ask for opportunities to help out on a team for learning and contributing. You will have to do extra work but will show the leaders that you have initiative and that would translate into
Being a PM is a leadership role. You have to influence your way of making things happen. It’s a skill that you have to build continuously. Companies and leaders like those who can take initiative, execute, and show results. Don’t wait for opportunities to come to you, make them happen.
Recommended Reading
- How to Hire a Product Manager – Ken Norton
- Four Mistakes New Product Managers Make – Matt Schnitt
- Be a Great Product Leader Adam Nash
- Product Manager, You Are… A Janitor, Essentially – Mat Balez
- A Product Manager’s Job – Josh Elman
- Four Mistakes New Product Managers Make – Matt Schnitt
- Creating a Customer-Driven Product Machine by David Cancel