Successful Startups Have Great Product Management
Most startup teams and founders that we speak with never fail to mention that they are looking for extraordinarily talented engineers. I’ve come to realize that some, especially in the early stages, believe it’s solely the quality of their developers that will dictate the success of their product and business. Although it’s clear that talented developers play a huge role in any technology business, often times we feel that the value of a great product manager can be underestimated.
Here’s what we’ve seen great PMs bring to the table…
Cross-functional Leadership
Ever referred to someone as the “glue” to a team or group? A good PM will be knowledgeable in different areas of software, technology, and business. He or she will know and understand the basics of every component that goes into an overall product. At Tecla, our PMs are able to dive in and out of conversations dealing with engineering, devops, marketing, product testing, customer validation, monetization and many other topics that come up when building a tech product.
There is no expectation for them to be experts in every one of these subjects. More importantly, the real value is found in being able to take all conversations and convert them into information and insight that the entire team can understand and leverage. They bring it all together.
Ways to learn what makes the product more valuable
The best PMs help guide the evolution of the product. They are involved in learning and testing ideas, assumptions, and features. An engaged PM will constantly be asking questions. Even more so than providing answers. Why? Because a great PM wants to understand how the product he or she is working on can generate real value to the final user or customer.
It’s not about building features. It’s about building the right features. A great PM will constantly focus on putting in place the right processes to learn enough to build the right features. We’ve seen great PMs bring with them continuous feedback loops and Lean frameworks that ultimately result in more valuable products with less resources invested. They make it a priority to learn how they can improve their product.
Analytical and creative thinking
It’s important to be creative. Few roles in software and technology are exempt from this requirement. All of the information in the world can’t help us if we are unable to identify insights and use them to propose the next step in the product roadmap. At some point, a great PM will use the feedback and insight he or she has learned from the product’s users and customers and use this insight to propose next steps.
They use an enormous amount of skill to take what they’ve learned and actually apply it.
A culture of open communication
Software is dynamic and software is fragile. Challenges are constantly present. Technical and non-technical issues emerge and are tackled on an ongoing basis, and effective and clear communication is key. It’s the job of the PM to make sure that information is efficiently flowing between all team members and that expectations are effectively set and shared by the team as a unit. A great PM will make the rest of the team feel comfortable enough to share information openly. Good news. Bad news. All news.
A focus on efficiency and potential maximization
A proactive PM will be ever-focused on identifying and getting rid of impediments that could be hindering progress or presenting problems that make the team not be able to work at its full potential. Impediments range from lack of resources, or lack of detail on a user story to complete a certain feature, to things that can seem out of the PM’s control altogether. A great PM will do everything in his or her power for the team to be working at its full potential. They’ll motivate their team and listen to their needs, concerns, obstacles, and ideas.
Strategy and business acumen
A great PM will set the vision for the product. Personally, I think it’s incredibly beneficial for a product manager to have a great sense for general business and entrepreneurship. If you are building a product as part of a for-profit venture, a great PM must be able to analyze his or her product taking into consideration things like marketing, sales, costs, projections, pricing, and much more.
Anyone can build a product (there are more than a million apps in the iOS AppStore alone). A great PM, however, can be the difference between just another product that gets launched and quickly buried, or building a successful business.
Some of the key points I brought up are responsibilities which I encourage to be shared between all team members. Still, an experienced PM will make sure that all of these key points are applied and highly valued within your company, along with tens of other very valuable things that did not make it into this article but make up the role of many great product managers.
