Product Management Overview

Product health and customer satisfaction are two growth indicators. Decisions made by those in charge of product development and growth have an impact on both of these variables. These decision makers are the owners of the product called "Product Managers (PM)."

While creating a product, a PM is responsible for a wide range of tasks, from determining and maintaining the product's success metric to understanding and meeting customer and user needs. It is all about inventing a product and introducing it to the market or improving an already existing product.

The career growth of a product manager has increased drastically in the last five years. Leading tech firms and organizations hire product managers widely every year. The modern world revolves around the existence of products, with which the future of product management will be endless.

For example, software products like Microsoft Office, Google Workspace are an everyday necessity for anyone working in the field of technology. The inevitable presence of software products is the reason why we cannot overlook product managers or product management.

Understanding Eriksson’s venn diagram

A classic and simple introduction to product management is defined by Martin Eriksson, a product manager with 25+ years of experience and co-founder and chairman of ‘Mind The Product’. Eriksson defines PM as someone who is passionate about business, user experience/design, and technology, and who is a skilled person in one of the three and is capable enough to communicate about it to the world. 
To further understand why a product manager is an intersection of the above-mentioned spectrums, let’s define each discipline.

Business - Optimizing the product for the business world is the crucial role that will essentially make the product and the user meet. Without a business strategy, it is impossible to grow dividends for the company.
Technology - As a product manager who drives the team, it is important to speak the language of a programmer to avoid miscommunication.
UX - A study shows that 90% of users stop using a product or software if there are faulty user experience designs. No one likes a ‘somewhat feasible’ product. Hence, it is required for a product manager to know the basics of UX.

In simple words, a product manager lies where business, user experience, and technology meet. A good PM is highly skilled in one of the three and has a fair understanding of the other two.

Product management vs Project management

There is a very thin line that separates a product manager from a project manager, despite the fact that the two job roles appear to be similar
For a better idea, let’s distinguish between product and project. A product is part of a project. For example, if building furniture for a house is a product, then the construction of a house is a project. In the tech world, if building an interface that shows the arrival time of the driver in Uber is building a product, then integrating and deploying this feature into the application is a project update. A project which is tech-oriented will have a precise start and end date, but a product lifetime depends on the lifecycle of the product. If setting a product vision is the job of a product manager, then set a timeline for a project is the role of the project manager. In small startups, a project manager takes up the role of a product manager, but in larger firms, the responsibility is delegated accordingly

Roles and Responsibilities:

Customer Obsession
Since the role of PM revolves around the needs of the user, it is highly significant to understand or obsess over the customer to understand the pain points. Customer obsession is the prime factor that drives an organization toward success.
The rudimentary skill of any product manager is to understand the customer’s needs. It is not building a solution to a problem that doesn’t exist, but building a solution for a problem that exists and making it disappear.
Build products to solve customer problems
Rightfully understanding the customer's needs, the responsibility of a PM shifts from customer obsession to figuring out the why. This mandatory step will aid in finding a solution for the customer’s problem. We know the customer base is diverse and extensive. Hence, the PMs should ponder, ideate, review, and execute the course of action.

Track product health
Once the product is developed, next comes the need to monitor and grow the product to make sure it meets the customer's needs, which is also known as production monitoring. The role of the product manager at this stage of the product lifecycle is to jot down a clear and realistic plan which will also serve long-term. A clear-cut roadmap of the product. When we talk about roadmaps, usually there are two types. Internal and external. Internal roadmaps are company level, which have the vision, short-term goals, and long-term goals of the product. External roadmaps deal with or are created for existing customers or investors. With these precise roadmaps, the product's health is compared and monitored.

Continuous Improvement
Analyzing product performance in the market. This stage helps in understanding the success or downfall of the product, identifying the revenue generated from the product, understanding user response, and further increasing user engagement. Analyzing the product after deployment will help the PMs generate ideas for improvements. These improvements will help the product sustain itself in the market.

In summary, the PM’s role is critical to the organization because he/she is the decision-maker for the product. A PM understands the market, assesses existing competition, develops and markets the products, and constantly works towards improving the product based on its performance.
As you can see, the product development lifecycle is an endless loop. Hence, the job of a product manager is both challenging and determined. A good PM works seamlessly under pressure and can generate logical decisions to overcome product challenges. Combined, these aspects can build greater brand equity and generate profits for the organization.

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