What is Product Management? (and tips on how can it improve your startup)

In any organisation, the function of product management is to guide the steps involved in a product’s lifecycle. This covers all the key steps, including product development, positioning, and pricing. As a product manager, you are interested in both the product and the customers. You want to introduce a product that enables the company to achieve its organisational goals. In retrospect, product managers make sure the voice of the market is heard and the best product is introduced.

The product life cycle

• Evaluate the opportunity
• Design solution
• Build
• Ship
• Measure
• (Repeat)

Why Product Management is Important

Every product has its own goals and unique challenges. For the product to be successful in the market, a unique and customized product management approach is needed. Product management combines the business, tech, and user experience (UX) to ensure the product meets its goals. 

The whole point of having the product management function in an organisation is to bridge the communication gap between the dev, design, business, and customers. In terms of UX, the product manager has the role of representing the customer in the company. In other words, your customers get a voice in the products being sold. On the other hand, the technology of product management involves having a clear understanding of computer science when developing products. 

Skills of a Product Manager 

As a product manager, you are expected to be effective in business management, implementing new technology, enhancing user experience and be the support of your team, making things happen. You need to master storytelling, marketing, and empathy to be effective in this role.

Storytelling is the skill that allows you to be inspirational when sharing the customers’ side of the story with the rest of the company. On the other hand, basic marketing and product positioning concepts give you the skills needed to target the right customers and ship the products on demand. Finally, you need to be empathetic to customers, their pain points, the business, and upper management (and at the same time to the people in your organisation and their needs). Remember that the product management does not execute things himself, but the people on his team.

Product Management Roles in an Organisation

In most cases, the role of product management for one product or a family of products can be assigned to an individual within the organisation. The individual is expected to represent a deep proficiency in the areas of product management, demonstrate passion in the product, and be fluent in the products. Since it is difficult to find individuals skilled in all these areas, product management comprises a small group of specialists:

• Chief Product Officer (CPO) – Responsible for leading the product function at the organisational level. Ensures skilled project managers review the product in all areas.
• Product Owners – An active member in the development of the product. Manages the engineering team’s backlog and keeps communication open with other stakeholders.
• Product Marketing Manager (PMM) – Improves the ability of the product team to reach customers. Ensures the team learns from customers through product marketing and useful insights from customers.
• User Experience (UX) Researcher – The role of a UX researcher in product management is to study the behaviours of customers and make usability recommendations to improve the product. 

Product Management in Agile Development

Among the most important aspects associated with product management in agile development. Essentially, agile product/software management involves guiding a product through multiple iterations. The approach is more flexible in line with the fluid nature of the agile program. This allows the team to spend less time defining the product and developing changes along the way. Your role as a product manager is to include customer feedback and recommendations in the process to ensure the product fits the needs of the market.  

Bring the donuts

Last but not least, “Bring the donuts”. As a symbol of services to your team. A PM should never be afraid to do the dirty work no matter how much it may seem beneath them. They are willing and able to help their teams succeed, which includes doing what they need! Be humble and focus on the big picture!