Product managers have the duty of ensuring that products have a great market fit. The achievement of this goal requires involvement in many activities and sometimes those things are outside the core responsibilities of Product management, but fall onto Product’s place regardless. Take a look at some PM job descriptions and you are likely to be confused as to what exactly a product manager should do.
What are the core responsibilities that define true product management?
A product is something that is intended to satisfy the needs or ease the pain points of the user. Its ability to serve this purpose is what makes it valuable to customers and make them willing to pay for it. Basically, a good product should have great market-fit.
As the name of the role suggests, product management is about managing products. It is about doing everything possible to achieve the much-desired product-market fit. How can you ensure that the solution you’re offering works for most in your target market?
It should be noted that product management is not synonymous with project management. It is long-term while the latter is short-term with a more specific output. Product managers should ideally pay more attention to the long-term strategy than becoming too involved in all projects.
The key responsibilities of a product manager revolve mainly around the following:
- Strategy definition
- Product discovery
- Release planning
- Prioritization
- Product leadership
Strategy Definition
Product management sees to the definition of the long-term product vision and strategy. It determines how products can play a part in attaining the overall company goals.
Product managers convey to the team what values the company aims to achieve with its products. This enables team members to have a clear picture of what is at stake with every new product or release. PMs have the role of ensuring that everyone knows what is most important toward the achievement of the strategic goals.
Product Discovery
PMs have an important role to play in the discovery process. This involves trying to find out what customers actually want, rather than what you imagine they want. It is vital for achieving a great market fit.
Product discovery requires you to carry out market research to know more about users and what the competition is doing. The work of PMs includes going through feedback from stakeholders, including users, and identifying trends.
The discovery process helps to identify the right personas and to determine what features add real value. It enables you and your team to decide what solutions would work for both your companies and users. You can prototype ideas for validation.
Release Planning
Many people think of product managers as being mainly responsible for determining what next to build. They plan what teams need to deliver in each release.
Product managers define the release process while doing everything they can to ensure that functions across the company are aligned for the achievement of product goals. They manage dependencies for the effective completion of release milestones and phases.
Prioritization
There will always be a lot for product managers to do, including those that are not so important. PMs, therefore, need to know how to prioritize effectively. Prioritization brings the relevance of the discovery process to the fore.
You need to stay well abreast of the latest industry or market trends and insights to determine what features to work on. Next, decide which of these are more important, taking into account the strategic goals and initiatives.
When prioritizing, PMs should discuss with the engineering team to know what is possible or easier to pull off. The truth is that some features could be quite tasking to develop. So, you want to prioritize not only based on value and usability but also the ease of building.
Product Leadership
We cannot leave out the fact that product managers provide leadership. They serve as a driving force, to ensure that everything runs smoothly. A product roadmap is a great tool that helps to a great extent in achieving this.
PMs are often regarded as CEOs of products. This means they are in charge of doing everything that supports the success of the products they control. How they do at this depends on the quality of leadership they provide.
Good product managers spur everyone towards the achievement of the product vision and strategy. They support and motivate everyone on the product development team to give in their best. This could mean lending a helping hand once in a while or rewarding good work, even if it’s with just a compliment.
