Can anyone be a Product Manager?
In many companies, especially older enterprise companies, the Product Manager role has a bad reputation. What too often happens is that the company takes people from other organizational roles (often Project Management or Business Analyst) and say we are moving to Agile, and we don’t need Project Managers or Business Analysts anymore, so we need you to be a Product Manager.
In my opinion, a Product Manager needs to be among the strongest talent in the company. If the Product Manager doesn’t have the technical sophistication, doesn’t have Business savvy, doesn’t have credibility with the key executives, don’t have deep customer knowledge, doesn’t have the passion for the product, or doesn’t have the respect of their product team, then it’s a sure recipe for failure.
There are a lot of ways to define this role. Some like to focus on what makes a strong product manager. Some like to focus on the day-to-day activities of the product manager.
To me what is most important to talk about is what the Product Manager is responsible for contributing to the team.
Let me start by warning you. This is a ton of work and not easy peasy as it may sound.
A Product Managers key responsibilities are pretty straightforward
- Responsible for evaluating opportunities
- Determining what gets built and delivered to customers.
We generally define what gets build in the Product backlog. Sounds simple enough right? The mechanics of that is not the hard part. What's hard is to know if what goes on the product backlog is worth building.
If you want to know why the Product Manager role is considered so important today to CEO’s and Venture Capitalist (VC’s), it’s this:
Every business depends on customers. What your customers buy or choose to use, is your product. The product is what your product team builds and the Product Manager is responsible for what the product team will build.
This is why the Product Manager is held responsible for the success of the product.
When a product succeeds, it's because everyone on the team did what they were supposed to do. But when a product fails, it’s a Product Managers fault.
Do you see why this role is a proving ground for future CEOs and the best VC’s want to invest in companies that have at least one of these people as the co-founders?
If you are to succeed as a Product Manager, there are 4 things your team expects you to bring to the table.
- Deep knowledge of the customer
An in-depth understanding of issues, pains, desires, how they think, and for business products- how they work and how they decide to buy. Without this deep knowledge, you’re just guessing.
2. Deep knowledge of the data
A big part of understanding your customer is knowing what they are doing with your product. Most Product Managers start their day on analytics tools understanding what's been happening in the past 24 hours. They are looking at sales analytics, usage analytics, and the results of AB tests.
3. Deep knowledge of your business and stakeholders
Successful products are not only loved by your customers, but they work for your business. Understanding the role your product plays in your business is important for a Product Manager to understand. This is tougher than it sounds. This usually means knowing your stakeholders and the constraints they operate under. Succeeding in the product means you making sure you understand your key stakeholders and their constraints and you are committed to delivering solutions that are consistent with those constraints.
4. Deep knowledge of market and industry
Not only an understanding of your competitors but technology, customer behavior and expectations, the understanding the role social media has on your market and customers. Most markets have more competitors today than ever before. Companies understand the value in making products that are “sticky”; this means making it difficult for customers to move from your competitors to you. It's not enough to have feature parity with a competitor. Rather, you need to be substantially better to motivate a customer to switch. Further, your industry is constantly evolving, and we need to build systems to where the market will be tomorrow not where it was yesterday. If you’re not excited about learning about the new technologies and exploring with your designers and engineers how you can use this technology to deliver dramatically improved products and experiences, then you need to really consider if this career is for you.
So, if you have been asked to cover the Product Manager role then this is what you need to sign up for.
I warned you. It’s a ton of work!
