The Basics of Product Management

Many people don’t realize that product management is a relatively new role in organizations. Until quite recently, different aspects of product management were performed by a myriad of functions across organizations. Business analysts, project managers, program managers, quality assurance engineers, and customer support all pulled together to fill the void and carry a product from inception to launch. But even now that “Product Manager” has become a common position in many industries (and quite the commodity for recruiters), the role remains unclear to even those who fill it. Many product managers still seem to think of product management’s role as a glorified Project Manager, or some amalgamation of User Experience, Quality Assurance and Customer Support. That’s why I’ve compiled a short-list of product management basics below as a guideline.

An effective product manager is responsible for accomplishing the following things:

Identifying Market Opportunity

We’re the folks who determine whether anyone actually wants to buy what the company’s selling. We determine market problems, investigate the competitive space, and thoroughly analyze industry trends. We are the folks who should be up-to-date on every single detail that could affect what our customer base wants or how it behaves.

We’re also supposed to do customer visits, prospect visits and attend industry events; generally speaking, this is where product management is least successful. Although PMs prefer to send out surveys, pore through customer emails and occasionally take a customer phone call, it’s not only their fault the profession is largely lacking in this area. Many companies are not willing to invest in gathering this (the best) kind of data. Product Managers need to attend events and spend time with current and prospective customers to find out what does and doesn’t work about the product. This is where VPs of Product need to step up and fight for the budget to allow their team to accomplish these tasks, as well as to push their team to do these visits and events on a regular basis. It’s best to set a quarterly quota of visits the team must make — it keeps ’em honest.

Defining the Product Roadmap

Product Managers must define exactly what goes into the product and at what times. We don’t technically decide when each new featureset will be released, considering Engineering determines the product RTM date and Marketing is responsible for deciding the exact GA, but we can heavily influence those dates, if need be.

We define each release to include some business and strategic opportunities, a few customer suggestions and as many bug fixes as we can squeeze in. The only problem when gathering market feedback is that everyone thinks they’re an expert, and each person’s pet peeve becomes a PRIORITY 1 MUST HAVE from their point of view, and the release is a disaster if it’s not included. Product managers must learn to hear the noise, and see the trend. And slap a few wrists.

Gathering Requirements

This is the most well-understood portion of a product manager’s role. Most people would identify writing requirements as the product manager’s domain. What they don’t see is the backend of the PM’s effort. We not only gather requirements, but we define use cases and user flows, argue business cases, and become masters in the black art of pricing.

Monitoring Product Performance

Even after release, the product manager’s job is not done. We spend a big chunk of our time tracking released products, because it gives us better insight into the subsequent releases. We follow market and customer KPIs (Key Performance Indicators) to help with forecasting future releases. KPIs consist of various performance metrics, such as regional market performance, market segment consumption, % revenue from new products, % revenue from new customers, ASP (average selling price), customer usage, number of trials and subsequent rate of conversion, and renewals. All the KPIs help inform the Win/Loss analysis, which marks the beginning of another product lifecyle. And then we do it all over again. 🙂

Of course, I recognize that I am leaving out key components of product management, such as interpersonal and communication skills, leading without direct authority, managing up, growing feature backlogs, technical aptitude, and a great many other things, but I’ve touched on the four basic activities an effective product manager must perform in order to launch successful products.