Deep Dive: Product Management Responsibilities

• 23, Jan, 2012
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• Tags: basics of product management, current releases, customer need, job satisfaction, leadership, management, management post, product management, product strategy, products, VP Product

The goal of my basics of product management post was to help inform those who are new to product management (on a high level) what a PM is expected to deliver. Upon reflection, I realized that I should further address the issue of other departments not knowing or understanding the role of product manager, as that can deeply affect your job satisfaction. Sadly, this often results in product management being treated as a “catch-all” or an intellectual janitor — when one department makes a mess or gets in over their heads, PM is expected to come in and clean it up. This is a terrible state for any company to be in, namely because it hinders Product’s ability to be forward-thinking, and thorough in its market research.

You see, PM needs to be forward-thinking at all times — even when analyzing past and current releases, PM must be doing so in the context of the greater product strategy. When PM becomes subjugated in this manner, everyone loses. The more time the product manager is bogged down with jobs that other departments should be handling, the more future product releases will suffer. It may not be evident in the next quarter, or even the one after that…but mismanaged products tend to have far-reaching and long lasting consequences.

IMPORTANT NOTE: If you are not leading Product Management, then DO NOT circumvent your manager! It is their responsibility to effect this change in the organization, and bypassing them will most likely cause you to end up in hot water — or worse.

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Product Management (PM) – Those who listen to the market and articulate its problems and future needs in the form of requirements.

What does product management do?

Overview:

• Researches customer need for the product.
• Evaluates competitive situation.
• Determines how product would be sold to customers, and develops a support plan to do so.
• Sets prices for product.
• Directs development process to ensure product will meet customer needs.
• Works with sales, marketing, support, and engineering to ensure groups can meet customer needs.
• Works with marketing on marketing plan; provides information and participates in discussions.
• Post-launch, gathers intelligence about how product is being received by customers, continues to supply marketing with data, and conceptualizes new products to develop and sell.

Specific activities:

• Listens to the market and creates roadmap and future product needs in the form of requirements.
• Works hand-in-hand with product development to ensure product requirements are delivered to spec and on-time.
• Communicates roadmap to customers/market.
• Establishes overall product portfolio vision/direction, including Technology Assessment and Architecture.
• Creates and maintains business case for each product and overall portfolio.
• Initiates market research and sizes markets.
• Specifies market requirements for current and future products by conducting market research supported by on-going visits to customers and non-customers.
• Writes detailed product specifications for use by Product Development.
• Prioritizes product requirements/specifications based on business case and PD capacity.
• Maintains product family roadmap and monitors Product Development schedules.
• Serves as solution/technical expert when dealing with thought leaders, analysts, and press.
• Provides content/copy for promotional materials and sales training.
• Provides competitive product analysis.
• Monitors industry innovations and technology.
• Analyzes product performance.
• Documents product profitability and operational metrics by tracking Key Performance Indicators (KPIs).
• Maintains key industry associations, preferably participating in relevant consortiums or standards committees (or by overseeing/coordinating other company personnel that participate).
• Provides support in development of marketing communications, including sales collateral public relations, industry publications, customer correspondence, trade shows & analyst tours.
• Writes white papers and technical communiqués as needed.
• Provides content for product collateral and presentations.

Ownership:

Product Roadmap

• Product portfolio vision/direction.
• Roadmap defines:
  • What we build.
  • When we build it.
  • Why we are building it.
  • Who will be buying it.
  • Why they will buy it.

Operational Metrics (Key Performance Indicators)

• Product financial performance
  • Product profitability.
  • Acceptance Testing
    • Are product requirements meeting goals?
    • Delivery
      • Is product available in a timely, high quality manner after release with availability well-communicated?
    • Support
      • Is Product Support meeting the needs of our customers?
      • Customer satisfaction (based on Net Promoter Score).
      • Not responsibility of PM, but should be asking for this info on a regular basis.

Thought Leadership

• Product Management are the product champions.
  • Part of their responsibility is to be looking forward.
  • Out-of-the-box thinking
    • Thought leaders challenge the status quo.
    • Always looking for a better way.
    • Maybe disruptive.
    • New market opportunities
      • Discuss with analysts, editors, researchers.
      • Bring technical view to discussions with analysts, editors, researchers.

Technology Assessment

• Technology Assessment is both responsibility of Product  Management and Product Development / Engineering
• Product Management performs Technology Assessment in order to:
  • Evaluate potential acquisition.
  • Relevance to market acceptance/adoption.
  • New trends and opportunities.
  • Product Development / Engineering performs Technology  Assessment to deliver required functionality.