Product Management - Overview

Product Management as a role has been in the talks for quite sometime now, while it existed since early 1940's , but it became the talk of the town nearly a decade ago.

So, what exactly a Product Manager does and what are the areas of Responsibilities of a PM. Search the internet and we will find a million different types of definition to this question, so let us understand it from a simple perspective

There is an Organization X which manages all its purchasing (Direct + Indirect) and Spend (Direct + Indirect) manually or with a very limited traditional software. Now, Company X identifies that it can manage purchasing & Spend much more productively and cost efficiently with the help of a Good SaaS provider. So, Company X identifies and reaches to Company Y to outline its requirements. Now, a Product Manager from Company Y takes part in the connect and understands all the requirements of Company X. Now it is the responsibility of the PM of Company Y to collaborate with all the required teams within Company Y, productize the idea and take it to Market. Overall, a Product Manager is responsible to ideate, conceptualize and take the product to market and see to its continuous improvement.

A Product Manager needs to collaborate with other teams such as Engineering, Sales, Marketing, UX and many more in order to facilitate transforming the idea into a MVP. MVP stands for Minimum Viable Product and is the first version of the actual product which goes through a set of validation checks in order to be certified and moved to actual Go-Live

We often come across the phase saying Product Manager is a mini-CEO. Now what does that exactly mean? It means that a Product Manager acts like a CEO of its Product - carrying out all activities ideating, conceptualizing, creating the road-map, taking it to market, defining success metrics, constantly improving the product

Now, within Product Management also there are different streams or specializations one can opt for. Let us understand these different specializations

  •       Core Product Manager
  •       Technical Product Manager
  •       Platform Product Manager
  •       Growth Product Manager
  •       Innovation Product Manager
  •       Data/Analytics Product Manager

Core Product Manager -> Focuses on building solutions for Customer needs, pain points and works on Product Strategy, Roadmap, Feature Planning and Backlog Creation

Technical Product Manager -> Focuses on Feature backlogs, Bugs Triaging, Project Management, Scrum Ownership and works on Sprint Planning, Development and Release Management

Platform Product Manager -> Focuses on Continued Organizational Growth with respect to Internal Customer Needs and works on Strategy, Roadmap and Scaling of Internal Products

Growth Product Manager -> Focuses on User Adoption, Discoverability, Related Growth Metrics and works on Growth related areas to open up new opportunities

Innovation Product Manager -> Focuses on Experimentation and Identifying new opportunities to expand and works on Product-Market fit expansion

Data/Analytics Product Manager -> Focuses on Data Driven UX & Product decisions, applications of data science and works on Data Management, KPI's and Reporting Framework

There are some other specializations such as Marketing Product Manager, Launch Product Manager, Funnel & Acquisition Product Manager but these are related to the above mentioned 5 mainstream specializations up to some extent

As with other roles, Product Management also has different levels in the hierarchy. These levels might differ a bit from one organization to another but essentially the crux of it remains the same

  • Associate Product Manager
  • Product Manager
  • Senior Product Manager
  • Principal Product Manager
  • Associate Director - Product Management
  • Director - Product Management
  • Senior Director - Product Management
  • Vice President - Product Management
  • Senior Vice President - Product Management
  • Chief Product Officer

So, as we move from lower to higher levels, one transitions from a individual contributor and managing product to leading Strategy and People, so essentially the horizon of influence grows as one moves from Associate Product Manager to higher up in the hierarchy

 

Hope this article will be able to give a glimpse of the world of Product Management and create interest in the minds of aspiring Product Manager



Credits

Google, Product School


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