What is Product Management?
The definition of product management is different for every company. Here, I’d like to use Josh Elman’s description which is more suitable for startups. Product managers:
“Help your team (and company) ship the right product to your users.
Product manager isn’t the boss, she is a team member instead. So that product manager isn’t the leader that executes her own ideas. She acts as a bridge between people and builds a collaboration process between all parties. This doesn’t mean that she doesn’t have her own ideas.
There is a close relation between the product and company vision. So, it’s crucial to have a real understanding of founder’s vision and goals. You should believe and work to realize same goals as the product manager.
Another important aspect of product management is delivering the right product. For this reason, product manager should be close to customers, she should know in deep detail what customers really want and when. She measures the customer interest and continuously feeds the team back to end up with the right product as a result.
Functions
Developing product strategy and vision based on the market facts
Understanding customer requirements, user stories
Defining and prioritizing product features
Sketching the initial product
Building roadmaps, managing the releases
Product marketing (competitive differentiation, positioning, market message, branding)
Product launches
Customer communication
People
Designers
Engineers
QA
Documentation
Marketing
