As a new product manager or even a senior PM, you may be more or less confused about this position. What exactly is a product manager? What are the primary responsibilities of this position? The definition of this position seems to be different in different areas of the IT industry, and even in different companies in the same field.
This article attempts to give the main responsibilities of product managers based on my many years of experience as a product manager. Although the roles and responsibilities of product managers vary from company to company, there are some key responsibilities that any product manager should bear. It can be summarized into the following six aspects:
1. Market research
Market research refers to studying the market to understand customer needs, competition conditions and market forces. The ultimate goal is to identify potential opportunities for innovation or product improvement.
Market research can be conducted in the following ways:
Communicate with users and potential users
Communicate with front-line colleagues who directly face customers, such as sales, customer service, and technology Support and other communication
Research market analysis reports and articles
Try competing products
Carefully observe user behavior, etc.
Market research will eventually form A business opportunity, product strategy or business requirements document (BRD) detailing how to exploit the potential opportunity.
2. Product definition and design
a) Product definition refers to determining what the product needs to do. It is usually described using a Product Requirements Document (PRD), which may include the following information:
Product vision
Target market
Competitive analysis
Detailed description of product features
Priority of product features
Product use cases (UseCase)
System requirements
Performance requirements
Sales and support needs, etc.
b) Product design refers to determining the appearance of the product, including user interface design (UI, User Interface) and user interaction design (User Interaction), including All the user experience parts. In large companies, PMs usually work with UI designers or interaction designers to complete product design, but in small companies or startups, product managers may need to do all these tasks.
This is the most valuable part of the product manager's job. If the product manager's job does not include this part, it is almost certainly not the product manager's job.
3. Project management
Project management refers to leading people from different teams (including engineers, QA, UI designers, marketing, sales, customer service, etc.) to work on time and within budget Develop and launch products. This may include the following work content:
Ensure resource investment
Develop project plan
Track project progress according to plan
Identify critical path
Strive for additional investment when necessary
Report project progress to supervisors
In large companies, there are usually project managers to handle most of the project management work , the product manager only needs to provide support. However, in startups, product managers usually need to manage projects themselves. In some companies, the technical leader may also serve as a project manager and handle most project management matters.
4. Product promotion
Mainly includes communicating the advantages, functions and target markets of the product with internal colleagues such as bosses, sales, marketing, customer service, etc. It may also include communicating to outsiders such as the media , industry analysts and users promote products.
Product managers in large companies usually have product marketing, marketing and media relations (PR) teams to help with external product promotions.
After product definition and design, this is the second most valuable job for product managers, especially when promoting the product to bosses and marketing colleagues and making them excited.
5. Product market
It is mainly the dissemination of information to the outside world - telling the outside world about the product. Typically includes the production of product data sheets, manuals, websites, Flash presentations, media features and trade show presentations.
In large companies, product marketing work is usually not handled by PMs. These companies have dedicated product marketing managers to handle this work. Of course, the biggest disadvantage of this division of labor is that it leads to lower communication efficiency and weakens external communication.
In some companies, "product management" and "product marketing" are considered synonymous, and one person will be responsible for both. In companies that separate product management teams and product marketing teams, the latter will take care of the job responsibilities mentioned in this section, and they may also be responsible for "market research", "product promotion" and "product life cycle" “Part of the job of management.
6. Product life cycle management
Refers to those product management activities throughout the life cycle as the product goes through conceptualization-gt; release-gt; maturity-gt; exit from the market.
The main tasks include:
Product positioning
Product pricing and promotion
Product line management
Competitive strategy
Establishing or acquiring partners
Identifying and establishing cooperative relationships, etc.
Product managers complete these tasks together with product marketing, BD and market communication colleagues.
I hope this article helps you understand product managers (including product marketing managers) and the departments they work closely with in the company, and I hope you will grow into an excellent product manager.