What is Product Management?
What is Product Management?
Product Management is the development of something which delivers value to your organisation, by meeting the needs of your users.’ - James Gadsby Peet
A product manager is responsible for a product’s overall success. Product management has a role to play in the entire product life cycle. Product managers are involved in all areas of product development, to ensure that the product is achieving its goals and meeting the needs of users.
The role of product management
Product development is an experimental process. You are constantly testing ideas and hypotheses to see if you are correct. It is not until the product is in the hands of users, in the real world, that you will truly understand how it is going to be used. That often means 'failing' and iterating the world. Having the courage to embrace failure and take action is crucial.
Product management is about relationships. It is your job to make sure everyone is on the same page, has a common goal and communicating effectively. Don't discredit how important stakeholder engagement is to your work. This could involve holding regular review meetings or advisory boards, having regular 1-2-1 catch ups with key colleagues and regular communications, updates or training for new features.
Product management is a discipline about value. Product management is about; Understanding value to add; Building value; Communicating value; Measuring value delivered. - Srini Sekaran
Top tips to remember as a product manager
Conway's law: The products you produce will mirror the way your teams and departments are structured.
“Organizations which design systems…are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations… The larger an organization is, the less flexibility it has and the more pronounced the phenomenon.” - Dr Melvin Conway
A good product strategy is never bound to the current operational set up. The strategy aims to create a future, which usually different from the current reality. The strategy is derived from a vision of how things could be and not how things are currently.
Don't limit your aspirations based on the current ways of working.
Key phrases for product managers:
'Why? What is the value to users? What is value to the organisation?'
'No'
'Not yet' - explore the power of not yet as explained by Jason Evanish
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