What is Product Management and Why You Need It
February 2020
Growing a successful business in today's world is becoming increasingly difficult. Globalization and the rapid evolution of technology platforms are dramatically leveling the playing field and significantly reducing barriers of entry for new competitors that are hell-bent on disruption. Or, at the very least, stealing your market share. The days of the 3 to 5 year business plans are long gone as the world around us changes at an ever increasing rate.
As a leader of a small to medium-size business, what is the one thing that should be the top priority for sustainable growth?
Deliver an exceptional customer experience with your product. In fact, over deliver. Consistently. Every day. In today's hyper competitive world, you MUST differentiate on customer experience. Deliver happiness. Make them smile every time they use your product or service. Endear your customer to your brand through the experience they have. Once your customer is having a meaningful experience with your product, they'll tell others about it and won't leave.
So, if differentiating on customer experience is important, who in your company is 100% focused on making sure this happens?
Enter Product Management
Quite simply: it’s the Product Manager. The Product Management role within an organization has sole responsibility for a customer's experience with the product and is the voice of the customer in all internal decisions that affect this experience.
With the customer always at the forefront, the Product Manager is also concerned with the business of the product. It is quite possible (and proven) to deliver an outstanding customer experience and yet lose money at the same time. And, although losses are quite normal during initial investment in getting a product off the ground, it should never be a long term strategy. The Product Manager makes the important business decisions on tradeoffs and where to invest for the good of the customer and the viability of a profitable business.
To make these important business decisions, the he or she also has an understanding of the technology used to deliver the experience. This understanding drives credibility with the development team and provides a foundation for decision making regarding tradeoffs due to inherent time and resource constraints.
Although the responsibilities of the Product Manager differ widely across organizations, key responsibilities include:
Gathering customer insight directly from customers and anyone within the organization that interacts with customers
Translating these insights into product strategy and development priorities
Aligning stakeholders towards the objectives
Creating core product messaging and collaborating with marketing and sales teams on how the messaging is delivered
Overseeing product success through its lifecycle.
In larger organizations where development investments and opportunity costs are higher, the product manager is also responsible for business case development and deeper market and competitive analysis.
Why You Need It
If your organization does not have a formalized Product Management role, you more than likely have some of the responsibilities spread across different roles. Customer feedback is coming into your sales or customer support team. Sometimes this feedback has an organized process of making its way into development, most of the time not. Business strategy is being defined by leadership and often this will include product strategy or it is left to Engineering leadership to define. With development incentivized on the most efficient method of getting features to market, sometimes the most impactful customer features are never prioritized. And, how are you measuring success of new features? Marketing will often work with the sales team to come up with messaging, but is there a deep understanding of core customer pain points driving the value proposition?
In the startup phase of a company, everyone understands that it is a team effort and there are several shared responsibilities while the company experiments to find a viable product/market fit. However, once this fit is achieved and a company evolves into the growth phase, a solid product strategy grounded in deep customer insight is imperative to get the most out of your development investment and differentiate your product in a crowded market. Make sure your development team is prioritized on product features that make your customers smile and tie them to your brand.
