Understanding the product management function

When starting out, almost every product manager comes across the trifecta that Martin Eriksson (co-founder and curator of Mind The Product) had proposed to define product management as the intersection between business, technology, and user experience. Another, equally famous definition of product management by Marty Cagan (founding partner of Silicon Valley Product Group and a veteran of product management) calls it as the function that discovers a product that is valuable, usable, and feasible. However, the one that captures the entire essence of the role is -

☝🏽Product management is an interdisciplinary function responsible for building products that solve real customer problems with solutions that fit within the organization's strategy while helping the business increase profitability and reach its financial goals.

Before we dig deeper into these definitions and understand the product management function, let’s first understand the reason why companies have products. Companies exist because they seem to have the solution and expertise to their customers’ problems.

Now, imagine if the company starts building a unique solution for each of its customers. It will soon exhaust its resources. Having a product that a company has to build once and sell many times is much more profitable than building a unique solution for each customer. Building a product that addresses the needs of a common set of customers is easier to sell, support, and scale.

Therefore, the reason companies have products is because the economies of scale are bigger with standard products that are repeatable and re-usable by all of its customers. 

Now that we’ve established the reason why companies like to build standard products, let’s move on to understanding where product management fits in. In order to build standard products, companies first need to identify which customers to target, what market needs to address, and what the overall value proposition should be.

Thereafter, they need to build the product and sell it in a way that maximizes the company’s profit.

To do this efficiently, they need someone who understands the market and has the ability to run experiments to gain customer insights.

They need a function that has a balanced view across all the different aspects of the product - what’s technically feasible, what’s easier to build and has maximum impact, what to build next and why to build it, the commercial aspect of building one thing vs another and the long-term impact on the company.

They need someone in the company to have an objective view on the right business strategy to drive the product forward. That’s where product management comes in.

Product managers take upon themselves the responsibilities to gain relevant information about the target customers, to build and deliver products that meet the customers’ needs in a cost-effective way thus increasing revenues and profitability. 

Product managers don’t just stop there. They have to delight customers with a great product experience so that they generate positive word-of-mouth referrals, stay on top of the competition and strategize to ensure that the company grows to capture and own the market in the long-term. While doing all of these things, they cannot lose sight of the tactical stuff; the ever-rising demands, and the ever-changing needs of the target customer base. 

The product management function will always be on the lookout for new product growth opportunities in the ocean of possibilities. In absence of the product management function, a company wanting to build standard products that are repeatable and re-usable will find itself juggling between short-term tactical work and long-term strategy. 

Building a product is a team game. Each function in the company brings its own expertise to the table. Engineers/developers build the product.

Designers make sure that the product has a great user experience.

Quality Assurance teams ensure that the shipped product is of superior quality.

Marketing creates buzz about the product’s value proposition to entice customers to purchase it.

Sales teams are responsible to convert the already intrigued customers into paying customers.

Thereon, customer success and customer support teams take over to resolve customers’ problems if any. 

This may make one wonder - what more might a company need to succeed? 

Are product managers even relevant?

Absolutely!

It’s true without doubt that product management is the glue that holds all the functions together. Each function in the company understands its roles, responsibilities, and contribution in making the product successful, but it is the product management function that has a bird-eye view of how the different functions come together to create a product. 

The product management function exactly knows which strings to pull and when during the journey of a product through its life-cycle. 

Illustration credit : Undraw.co

Product Management as shown in the above figure is at the center of all the functions involved in the building of a product and is responsible for the overall success of the product. 

The above explanation describes a very broad gamut of the product management function and may seem overwhelming. This may raise a question - What are the practical responsibilities of a product manager ? Let’s take a deeper look.

Here are some bullet points that will give you an idea of the tasks that a product manager does - 

A product manager must use all the above information to define a product/feature that addresses the customers’ needs and has unique differentiation as compared to the competition. This may be in the form of a product requirements document (PRD) in which the valuable market problem is well articulated, a solution with justification is proposed and the necessary features to delight the customers are outlined.

☝🏽 The ability to make tough decisions and doing what is right is what makes the product manager’s role so special. A product manager has to make numerous micro-decisions during the entire lifecycle of the product; some on his own, and some with the team.

During the entire lifecycle of the product, there will be numerous micro-decisions that a product manager will have to make; some on his own, and some with the team after evaluating the trade-offs through thorough discussions. Participating in the daily status update meetings and weekly planning meetings with different teams, organizing demos, resolving blockers, conducting demos, monitoring the progress, running beta or early access programs with customers, analysing the metrics of recent releases are some of the things a product manager does to ensure smooth execution of the product vision. 

It must be evident to you by now that product management is truly a cross functional role and the responsibilities are varied. In fact, the beauty of product management lies in the truly diverse nature of the job.