THE INs AND OUTs OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT — The Elemental Steps
“A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.” – Deep Nishar, Vice President of Product at LinkedIn
Have you ever been puzzled about how in a world of 7.7 billion people, with an average of 50% of the population ordering every day, this massive shipping is accomplished to satisfy their needs? What is the tremendous force that enables people to obtain the goods and services readily accessible on the market?
It is 2022, we have immense electronic devices, wearables, decorative objects, and everything else that is widely available to us in today’s fast-paced society. Each day is an opportunity to create something unique. And every invention has a sequence of steps that must be completed to achieve the desired outcome. We humans always tend to choose the finest option out of many. But ever wondered what helps the product stand out from the pack?
Who is the one behind organizing tasks right from the developing stage to positioning, pricing, and delivering a product to the market?
It’s the PRODUCT MANAGEMENT team that answers all of the above questions. Abraham Lincoln once quoted, “Give me six hours to chop down a tree, and I will spend the first four sharpening the axe”. Similarly, the product management team plays a key role (by putting the product and its customers first) for the product to reach the customers. One of the key purposes of this team is to have a deep understanding of clients and the capacity to provide them with customized solutions. This is where product management enters the picture.
“Product management is the practice of strategically driving the development, market launch, continual support and improvement of a company’s products”.
Along with this, it commits to creating the best products possible. Accordingly, they always attempt to develop a good team, a good relationship with stakeholders, with three primary questions in their minds:
what are you building, whom you are building for, and most importantly, why?
Let’s take a closer look over how this product management functions in a company or organization and what are the foremost things a product manager commits most of their time.
Conducting Research:
Studying the company’s market, user personas, and rivals to gain knowledge and understanding.
Developing Strategy:
Putting their newfound market information into a high-level strategic plan for their product, complete with goals and objectives, a broad description of the product, and possibly a rough schedule.
Communicating Plans:
Using their newly acquired market knowledge to create a high-level strategic plan for their product, replete with goals and objectives, a broad description of the product, and possibly a rough timeline. And continue to talk about it as the product develops within time and on budget.
Coordinating Development:
They talk and cooperate to execute the Product Strategy once the product has been confirmed.
Acting on Feedback and Data Analysis:
Following the completion of all terms and the release of the product, gather feedback on what strategies worked, what didn’t work, revise things that could be improved, and work with the team members to include this feedback into future revisions of the product.
Kickstarting right from the start. “History” is the first thing that strikes our mind. In this fast-growing world knowing from scratch is the best way to ace anything.
THE HISTORY OF PRODUCT MANAGEMENT:
During the Great Depression, a 27-year-old marketer created the concept of a “brand man” — an employee who manages a specific product rather than performing a standard corporate function. The continuous effectiveness of this function has resulted in the expansion of product organizations across industries and continents since the 1930s.
The product management team starts with building a Road map, PRD, and Back Log
ROAD MAP:
What is a product roadmap?
A product roadmap is a shared source of truth that outlines the vision, direction, priorities, and progress of a product over time.
Road maps assist the team and product owners in comprehending how the product evolves. The roadmap is used by agile teams to keep everyone on the same page and to provide context for their daily work and future direction. For the customer’s review, this must be responsive.
PRD (PRODUCT REQUIREMENTS DOCUMENT):
It describes how a product will meet the needs of customers. The queries collected from the customers have been documented and then sent to the development team. This team focuses on interrogative words like ‘Who’ and ‘Why ‘. Upon succeeding in this they write the product statements and give the final review (as an outline for the product).
BACKLOG:
A product backlog, which is a prioritized list of work for the development team, is created using the roadmap and accompanying requirements. The most important items are listed first on the product backlog, helping the team to prioritize what should be delivered first. A product backlog is constantly evolving and developing, it can never be fully completed.
The following items are commonly included in a product backlog:
● Product characteristics (for example, statements of desired functional
● Different bugs
● Knowledge acquisition (for example, workstation up-gradation)
● Technical work (for example, any useful research).
The six most beneficial ways for leading the product management:
1. Digital products will be crucial to corporate expansion.
2. Product roles are becoming more specialized.
3. Product operations managers are on the rise.
4. COVID-19 continues to have an impact on how we work because the product
5. management tools are evolving at a faster rate than ever before.
6. It’s more important than ever to form meaningful consumer relationships.
Scope of Product Management in the future:
According to a McKinsey analysis, the pandemic has hastened digital adoption by major corporations by up to five years. Product Managers are needed to assist companies in navigating this change and ensuring a smooth transition. As a consequence, we will require many more product managers in the future, and there are now numerous open positions for product professionals. At last, the secret formula for a product professional is their capacity to comprehend, communicate, and empathize.
We have come across the elemental study of product management and we hope you will take these lessons and make them your own.
The best quality a person can possess is a desire to learn. Alone we can do so little, but together we can do so much. Let us band together, in order to learn more.
So, to have deeper learning let’s meet again & stay tuned to our blogs for more insights. Have a wonderful day until then.
References:
https://www.productplan.com/learn/what-is-product-management/
https://www.productboard.com/blog/product-management-trends-2021/
