I was asked recently, "What is Product Management and what do Product Managers do?" This post represents my opinions on Product Management based on my experiences as a Product Manager, Sr. Product Manager, Sr. Manager of Product Management, and Director of Product Management responsible for various telecom/web-based services across six companies (two of which were acquired, so I counted them each double) since 1996.
To frame my opinions properly, please know that I come from a technical background (programming), which does make my view of the Product Management world slightly different than someone who would come from a Marketing (or other) background.
I'm also sure this summary is missing (likely important) topics here and there. As I think of those things, I'll update this post. For a "professional" description about and discussion of Product Management, visit the Pragmatic Marketing web site.
So, here we go...
The purpose of Product Management is:
- To provide stability, consistency, and continuity throughout a product's lifecycle and all customer touch points (i.e. the customer experience).
- To simultaneously do what is best for the product, the customer, the marketplace, and the company.
- To help shape and execute upon the company's strategy from a product/product portfolio standpoint.
- To ensure the product makes money.
- To be ultimately responsible for some or all of the 4 P's of Marketing - Product, Price, Place, and Promotion.
- Marketing sometimes owns Place and Promotion.
- We sometimes also share ownership over the technical aspect of the Product element with Product Development Managers.
The paths into Product Management and where you can go once you're there:
- Though Product Managers can come from anywhere, I find they typically come from either a technical background (e.g. programmer, engineer, etc.) or a Marketing background (e.g. Marketing Manager, Marcom Manager, etc.). Product Managers can certainly also comes from Sales, Operations or elsewhere, but I haven't seen as much of that in my experience.
- The Product Management role is sometimes broken down into Product Management and Product Development Management.
- Product Development Managers tend to represent the more technical side of Product Management; they are often responsible for writing functional/technical requirements and tend to interface with Engineering more so than with Sales, customers or the market.
- The Product Management role can also be broken down into new product development (more strategic) and lifecycle product management (more tactical). Sometimes these roles go to more senior or junior Product Managers, respectively.
- In this scenario the new product development Product Manager focuses primarily on creating and deploying entirely new products into the organization, which requires different skills than those had by a lifecycle Product Manager, who might work on minor product enhancements and upgrades, but tends to focus more on Price, Place and Promotion to ensure a mature product's continued growth and success.
- The typical career path I've seen in Product Management is: Associate (or Junior) Product Manager --> Product Manager --> Senior Product Manager --> Director of Product Management --> VP of Product Management. Sometimes the career path heads off towards more of a Director/VP of Marketing at the end there, which I think might then better ready a person to eventually end up in a CMO role. I haven't personally seen anyone take that path yet, so I can't say for sure.
Where Product Management fits within an organization and how organizations perceive the role:
- Ideally, Product Management should be its own organization reporting to the CEO. Next best is for it to report, along with Marketing, into a CMO. When combined into any other group it turns into a bit of "the fox watching the hen house."
- Product Management sometimes reports to Sales, which leads to disaster. In my opinion, this is the absolute worst possible reporting scenario. Sales is focused on short-term customer needs and therefore loses sight of (or doesn't care about) what's going on in the greater market. The result is generally a very tactically executed, jumbled together product that can't meet anyone's future needs. And then there's pricing and costs...Sales should NEVER have access to costs. Don't even get me started on that.
- Product Management sometimes reports to Engineering. Engineering often thinks Sales is stupid and tends to lead Product Management to build what's cool from a technical standpoint, even though what's ultimately built may not truly meet customers' or the market's needs. That said, if the Product Manager has a good relationship with the Engineering team, they can sometimes balance the potential cons of this scenario by injecting the "voice of the customer" into the Engineering world, but they have to be pretty strong and sure footed in their Product role to do that.
- Please know that we are Product Management. We are NOT Marketing. We are two different breeds with two different sets of strengths and skills. Don't just lump us together and treat us as a single blob. Treat us and our role distinctly, as the important and special individuals that we are.
- If the Product Management role has been appropriately established within a company, you should be able to enter the job and be immediately granted all of the power and control associated with the role. In this scenario -- even if you somehow screw up -- you typically won't screw up the overall role within the organization. If the role has not been appropriately established, you'll have to fight tooth and nail to build it into what it needs to be. You'll have to work from the ground up to build respect for the role and good working relationships with every department, you'll have to fight to own the things the role should own, and continue fighting everyday to ensure you don't lose any of what you just built.
Qualities Product Managers (should) exhibit:
- We carry the spirit of the product with us wherever we go. We're passionate about it -- we live and breathe it and fight for it when we have to. We use that to inspire and lead our teams in the direction we all need to go.
- We are negotiators, diplomats and interpreters. We are responsible for everything, yet we have direct control over nothing. Therefore, every meeting, conversation, and interaction is a negotiation. We also help ensure that our stakeholders work together effectively by dancing diplomatically between groups and encouraging good relations. Finally, we have to speak the different languages of all our stakeholders, such that we may communicate effectively with and between them.
- We treat our product as our children. We're proud of what we build and we try to build the best products possible. Our products are a reflection of ourselves. When we fail, we take it personally. When someone speaks disparagingly about our products, we take it personally. ...regardless of how hard we may try not to.
- We are willing and able to make decisions and take full responsibility for them. We don't fear decision making. While we like to make very disciplined and well-informed decisions, we also understand that we sometimes have to make decisions by the seat of our pants and with our guts in order to keep a product or project's momentum going.
- We are not afraid to say, "No." If saying, "No," is the right thing to do for the customer, company, market or product, we'll say it.
- We are good, clear communicators. We spend 100% of our time communicating, be it through written or verbal means. Lack of communication clarity can result in, for example, an accidental promise to a customer or a poorly built feature.
- We have a good mental filter. We have an uncanny ability to keep our eye on the market, ear towards the customer, and distill that into what we need to do with the product in response.
- We are good team players. We have to be -- we rely on other departments to bring our ideas to life. If we don't get along well with others, it seriously hampers our ability to succeed.
- We are presentable. The company should have no fear about putting us in front of an executive team to give a presentation or sitting us down with a front line staff member to learn what they do. Our behavior and how we present ourselves in any given situation is a reflection on the company and we take that very seriously.
- We are loyal and trustworthy. We are loyal to our company and our products. We will always try to do our best by them and help them succeed. We often also have access to information not generally available to the rest of the company and we don't take the responsibility that comes along with that lightly.
- We are organized control freaks by nature. If we weren't, how could we do all of this?
Documentation Product Managers (typically) produce:
- Concept papers: to introduce new product ideas to the company
- Business cases: to support the investment to develop a new product, feature or enhancement
- Product roadmaps/product plans: to communicate to stakeholders where the product is going in the future
- Market analyses/Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and Threat (SWOT) analyses, etc.: to understand the market and the company's place within it
- Market(ing) Requirements Documents (MRDs): to describe what new product, feature or enhancement needs to be built
- Personas, use cases, Functional Requirements Documents (FRDs): to describe in further detail the new product, feature or enhancement that needs to be built
- Pricing models and discount schedules: to ensure pricing is communicated by Sales to customers in a consistent and business-sensible manner
- Communication briefs: to provide the information Marketing needs to launch a new product, feature or enhancement to customers and the company
- Customer-facing and internally-facing product materials: to ensure customers and the company understand (in a consistent manner) what value and benefits the product brings, as well as the features/functionality it offers
Other responsibilities, not touched upon above, that Product Managers (generally) have:
- Serve as the resident product expert
- Manage vendor relationships related to our products
- Manage projects
- Provide Sales support
- Assist with pricing/discounting
- Host or attend customer presentations/discussions
- Field product and feature requests
- Provide training
- Answer product questions
- Own and protect margins
- Conduct media/analyst briefings
- Represent the company at trade shows
