Building Products Right: The Art of Product Management

In the world of tech, we are always talking about product: what it can do, how it’s being distributed, when we’re launching it. But what is product?

Product is the bread and butter of tech, whether we’re talking about a service or the tools that make designing software possible. Nothing about building a product is simple, and the product management process of taking an idea from a napkin and turning it into something that people can use requires the art of agile product management.

Josh Kramer, Director of Product at OneVest, a Wealth-as-a-Service platform, was recently featured in the Harvest Builders Tech Talk. With his experiences working with OneVest, Accenture, and partnering with some of the largest companies in the world, Josh spoke about agile product management and how a defined product development process can not only build products, but build them right to accelerate growth and scaling.

What is agile product management?

When asked what a product manager does, Josh Kramer describes his role by saying, “I figure out what we need to build, and then how we build that as efficiently as possible.”

Josh calls product management “the intersection of building the right product, and then building it right. And this is important because ideas are a dime a dozen — you can have an idea, but if you can’t actually bring it to life, it’s not that meaningful or impactful.”

So how do you bring it to life? How do you make sure that you’re building the right product in the right way? Josh shares four guiding principles he employs at each stage of agile product management.

Keep it simple

Tech can be complicated, but a great idea can always be communicated simply. As Josh says, “If you think it is simple, make it simpler”. No matter what you’re building, a product has to be easily understood, with people seeing its value almost immediately in order to efficiently scale and attract your initial user base.

Make it magical

As Arthur C. Clarke once wrote, “Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.” Josh discusses how whatever you’re building has to solve real problems for real people, and it should leave them with a sense of wow — like they’ve just seen something magical. Brand champions, from Apple to SkipTheDishes, use this magical quality to inspire a following of users that can’t get enough of their product.

Be better than the competition

There’s going to be competition out there. When it comes to the competition, Josh states that “you can’t go lower than your competition, so know them well and do it two times better”. Don’t fall into the trap of copying your competitors. Instead, treat your competitors as the bare minimum of what your product has to offer, and study them to determine what gaps your product can fill that your competitors can’t.

Ruthlessly prioritize

Above all, what you’re building has to be your top priority. Josh explains that when building a new product, time is limited, so you need to be hypercritical in your product development process. Prioritize building foundational features first and be quick to sunset ideas that aren’t adding immediate value. Doing this will help you stay focused and set your team up to build the best product that you can, as fast as possible.

Keeping these guiding principles in mind will not only help you build a product, but build a product that grows and scales. In agile product management, you’re not just building something — you’re bringing something to life.

Want to learn more about agile product management and how it can enable growth and scaling?

Check out Josh Kramer’s Tech Talk here: