Product Management For Dummies. Brian Lawley
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Название: Product Management For Dummies

Автор: Brian Lawley

Издательство: John Wiley & Sons Limited

Жанр: Зарубежная образовательная литература

Серия:

isbn: 9781119264033

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СКАЧАТЬ example, creating part numbers or updating a spreadsheet. Sometimes you can get someone else to do these tasks, but many times you have to be responsible for them.

      

Keep in mind that the amount of time you spend on a particular part of your job varies depending on whether you sell to businesses or consumers. The terminology used here is business to business (B2B) and business to consumer (B2C). The type of product you manage also determines how much time you spend on different tasks. A software product manager is often very focused on customer journeys and user experience. A hardware product manager may spend a lot more time on supply chain issues and forecasting. As you change from one product to another, be mindful of the critical success factors that face you in this position.

       Checking out the job description

      Why refer you to the job description? It’s where your boss has put in all her hopes and expectations of what you’ll bring to the role. And companies often define product management differently. You may see items that are usually part of project management, sales, or user experience that are included.

      

Because you’re providing product direction, expect to see a reference to product strategy in your role. If it isn’t there, you may actually be in a junior role or managing a very customized B2B product where your customers are more likely to dictate your every move. If neither of these is the case, your company may not understand the benefits of strong product management. You aren’t alone. According to the 280 Group’s 2013 LinkedIn survey of product management professionals, 75 percent of executives didn’t understand product management. And Actuation’s team performance survey confirmed that about half of companies had a poorly defined product management role.

      If this is your situation, talk to your manager about the lack of responsibility for strategy as discussed in this chapter. In some rare instances, strategy isn’t part of the product management role.

       Primary responsibilities of a product manager

      Here are some bullet points you may find in your job description:

      ❯❯ Defines the product vision, strategy, and road map.

      ❯❯ Gathers, manages, and prioritizes market/customer requirements.

      ❯❯ Acts as the customer advocate articulating the user’s/buyer’s needs.

      ❯❯ Works closely with engineering, sales, marketing, and support to ensure business case and customer satisfaction goals are met.

      ❯❯ Has technical product knowledge or specific domain expertise.

      ❯❯ Defines what to solve in the market needs document, where you articulate the valuable market problem you’re solving along with priorities and justification for each part of the solution.

      ❯❯ Runs beta and pilot programs during the qualify phase with early-stage products and samples (see Chapter 13 for a detailed discussion of this phase).

      ❯❯ Is a market expert. Market expertise includes understanding the reasons customers purchase products. This means a deep understanding of the competition and how customers think of and buy your product

      ❯❯ Acts as the product’s leader within the company.

      ❯❯ Develops the business case for new products, improvements to existing products, and business ventures.

      ❯❯ Develops positioning for the product.

      ❯❯ Recommends or contributes information in setting product pricing. This point isn’t true in all industries, especially insurance; however, an awareness of competitive pricing is part of what companies expect you to provide as part of the pricing decision.

       Other common responsibilities

      Depending on your product line, you can also be asked to do the following tasks.

      ❯❯ Work with external third parties to assess partnerships and licensing opportunities

      ❯❯ Identify the market opportunities

      ❯❯ Manage profit and loss

      ❯❯ Research products that complement your product

      ❯❯ Review product requirements and specification documents

      ❯❯ Make feature versus cost versus schedule trade-offs

      ❯❯ Ensure sales and service product training occurs

      ❯❯ Develop product demos or decide on product demo content

      ❯❯ Be the central point of contact for the product inside the company

      ❯❯ Partner closely with product marketing

       Common deliverables

      Product managers drive action throughout the company mainly through written documents supported by presentations. Here is a list of the most common documents that you may be asked to create – be aware that each company has their own specific list and terminology:

      ❯❯ Business case

      ❯❯ Market needs document

      ❯❯ Product road maps

      ❯❯ White papers, case studies, product comparisons, competitor analysis, and user stories

       Required experience and knowledge

      Product managers call on a wide range of skills and have a broad set of business and product experiences to call on. Here is a list of what managers look for in hiring product managers:

      ❯❯ Demonstrated success in defining and launching products that meet and exceed business objectives

      ❯❯ Excellent written and verbal communication skills

      ❯❯ Subject matter expertise in the particular product or market – this should include specific industry or technical knowledge

      ❯❯ Excellent teamwork skills

      ❯❯ Proven ability to influence cross-functional teams without formal authority

       Pinpointing product management on the organizational chart

Product management can report into various parts of the organization. In tech-heavy roles, it sometimes reports into engineering. In more consumer-oriented companies, it sometimes reports into marketing. More and more, companies recognize that a synthesis of what the customer wants and what the business can provide is best placed at the highest level of an organization. So VPs of product management now often report into the CEO or the executive manager for a division. See Figure 2-1 for an organization chart example.

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