Roadmap to Product Management
The role of product manager (PM) is the most fascinating role within tech teams right now. PMs are closest to the center of the action, have a disproportionate amount of influence over key decisions, and often go on to start their own companies. It’s no surprise then that product management has begun to show up on lists of the best, hottest, and most promising careers in the U.S. (and not just in tech).
Product management is led by a… product manager. Don’t confuse the role with a project manager. A project manager is responsible for a single part of a product life cycle — product development, while a product manager’s responsibility is to lead a product from the germ of an idea to launch, focusing on features, business value, and the customer.
Product management process and key activities:
Tasks in product management cascade from strategic to tactical. The whole process of product management involves
- Vision development,
- Customer understanding,
- Strategy development,
- Product development,
- Marketing and sales, and
- Metrics tracking.
Each of the stages may include inbound and outbound activities. A product manager doesn’t perform all activities but rather supervises their fulfillment.
Do not become a product manager if you are primarily fulfilled by:
- Appreciation 🥳
- Having your way 😑
- Being left alone 🚨
- Always being right 🤓
- Designing or building things yourself 👩🎨
- Everyone liking you 🥴
- Flow states 🧘♂️
- Avoiding meetings 🤐
- Avoiding email ✉️
- Avoiding people 🤨
You don’t need to connect with every item in this list, but if the gist feels right, keep reading.
Inbound activities focus on product development and include defining vision and strategy, product development, testing, and launch.
Outbound activities are oriented toward the marketing of a product and its sales. This includes branding, sales, and analysis of customer feedback.
Market research and customer understanding
Market research is a process of information collection and analysis of the market and its present or potential customers. It comprises comparing similar products that already exist, studying the competition, and identifying target customer groups.
Obviously, knowing your customer is a basis for creating a successful product. 76 percent of consumers expect companies to understand their needs. Moreover, 84 percent of companies that focused on improving customer experience reported a revenue increase.
As mentioned above, a product manager in cooperation with the product marketing manager conducts various research to get a deep understanding of potential product consumers. This process includes several perspectives:
Creating user personas means describing fictional characters that represent the user types that can have interest in the future product. In other words, a portrait of your ideal customer. User personas can include such information as age, gender, education level, average income, life goals, common problems, spending habits, etc.
Identifying customers’ needs is the only way to create and deliver the product that will be in demand. Besides defining specific problems and necessity for a specific product, customers can be classified into groups according to their 4 main needs: price, quality, choice, and convenience.
Studying customer behavior involves understanding your target customers’ psychology and motivations. That includes knowing how they reason and choose between different alternatives, how they conduct research, how they are influenced by their surroundings, how they react to marketing campaigns, and much more.
Market research can be made by a company (primary research) or taken from an external source (secondary research).
Secondary research involves already produced data that can be found in statistical databases, journals, online sources, etc.
Primary research is adapted to a company’s needs and can be either qualitative or quantitative. Qualitative research focuses on defining problems and relevant issues. This incorporates personal interviews, group surveys, and focus groups. Quantitative market research is based on data collection and statistical analysis. It allows a product manager to reach a larger audience and gather general information, while qualitative research provides insight into a problem, identifying wants and needs, as well as possible pitfalls.