Product Management — A student’s guide
As a student of University of Malaya, it is a matter for rejoicing not only because of its prestige, but also its strategic location since numerous tech-related events are held near or in the campus. I would like to give a special thanks to The UM App Club where they actually held events which are exclusively for UM students, by inviting the experts such as CEOs and CTOs of some companies, providing invaluable input to the students.
So Manage What Exactly? Product Management by VP Product was a talk on product management given by Collin Pal, a self-declared agile liberalist, who is extremely passionate everything that is related to product management.
There is no way to define product management in one sentence.
This is what the speakers explained about what does a product manager do, meanwhile I found a more detailed diagram of sets, clearly explain the concept of product management for the novice, or even a first year undergrad like me.
As you can see, Product Manager lies in the intersection between the three scopes, which are marketplace, end-user(customer) and brand. For those who are interested in the history and evolution of product management , you may have a visit on this website:
The History and Evolution of Product Management. Product Management started in 1931, so actually it isn’t an emerging field, yet it kept evolving and now it becomes the product management where we can observe in the startups.
Why product management grows?
The reasons why product management grow in mainly due to two major reasons:
Technology
- In the era of modernisation where we are surrounded by technology invention and application of technology in any scopes, a company needs a brand person to break the gap from business to tech, and then translate business objectives to actual results.
Advent of agile software development
- According to WhatIs.com, Agile is a methodology that anticipates the need for flexibility and applies a level of pragmatism into the delivery of the finished product. Agile requires a cultural shift in many companies because it focuses on the clean delivery of individual pieces or parts of the software and not on the entire application.
“Be fast. Be quick. Always have the desire to learn.”
Thus, as a product manager, one has to be aware of the current issues, and always have hunger for external knowledge so that he or she can think of solutions to solve the problems occur.
Remarks: The zerorise of GST and implementation of SST lately. Observe how do the companies overcome the problem and adapt to the new taxing system.
Wireframes / Story Mapping
Wireframes or story mapping is effective in visualizing the features that a company need. All you need to have is just post-it stickers, pens and a wide blank wall. That’s all.
Steps:
- Write out the ideas on the post it
- Prioritise the ideas.
- Draw lines on the task / ideas you have arranged.
To know more about story mapping, you can refer to this post Story Mapping in Under 200 Words.
Some Important Quotes from The Speaker
“Always think of new initiatives.”
“Be the observer of the trend. Keep learning. ”
“It is easier to ask for permission than ask for forgiveness.”
“If you want to learn faster, go join startups.”
Book recommendations
- The lean startup — Eric Ries
- Drive — Daniel H.Pink
Conclusion
Indeed, it was an another eye-opening experience for me to obtain knowledge that is out of my expertise, where I am trying my best to emulate from Elon Musk about developing T-shape skills, instead of the traditional I-shape skills. This talk indeed was insightful for me to have a better understanding about what does a product manager does, and I hope I would learn more through participating the events held by The UM App Club.
