This is where product managers need to take on a leadership role. Senior management concerns themselves with the big picture and doesn’t have time to deal with the details of each product. A little more process is needed, and product managers start working on business cases, product reporting, and roadmaps.Īs companies get bigger, they get more customers and start selling in multiple markets with multiple products and propositions. They need someone to manage the product day-to-day, help them prioritize, and think about future product plans. With a bigger, more complex company to run, senior management become even less close to the details of the products. There is always a bottleneck that holds things back – whether that’s development resource, management time, or marketing spend. Once a company has multiple products, then prioritizing becomes a more pressing issue. See our blog on being the first product manage r. And their focus is on tactical things like fixing issues, supporting sales, and managing the requirements backlog. In our experience, someone within the business is usually chosen because they already understand the product. That’s usually when the first product manager starts. They don’t have time for some of the more detailed time-consuming product activities like writing requirements. When a company is small, then the founders or senior management do all the product activities as the company has (and is) just one product.Īs companies grow, senior management become busy running the business, hiring new people, and dealing with investors.
What a product manager does in your company will, to some extent, depend on how big your company is. The product manager job description changes as companies grow
#Growth product manager software#
And the political skills of being able to manage the often-conflicting demands of customers, development, sales, and senior management are key.īut as digital online start-ups scale into multi-national companies with products in multiple markets and software becomes part of most technology-based products, we find the whole range of skills are needed in many companies. Product managers also typically get involved in face-to-face selling and so need to have a deep understanding of the market domain and be good in front of customers. Each product is more like its own little business, so product managers need stronger and wider commercial skills.
The product manager skills needed can be very different. It may take many years to develop a product, and every customer may want and get something slightly different. Many of the strategic product management activities take place at a more senior level in the business.Īt the other end of the spectrum is Business to Business (B2B) companies serving a small number of large customers. Key skills include data analytics, design expertise, customer insight skills, User eXperience (UX) knowledge, lean development with Minimum Viable Products (MVPs), and social media marketing. The role is often called a Digital Product Manager. web-based products developed using Agile approaches. Products are usually Software as a Service (SaaS), i.e. The product manager job changes from industry to industryĪnother factor that has a big impact on a product role is the industry a company is in.Īt one end of the spectrum, there are digital online companies. And what makes it even more confusing is that these roles are set up differently from one company to the next. Three of the most common – Product Manager, Product Owner, and Product Marketing Manager are shown in the diagram below.Īs you can see from the diagram, these product roles often overlap. To add to the confusion, there are lots of different job titles that focus on different product-related activities. It makes a single product manager description very difficult.
It depends on the size of a company, if the products are software, physical products, or services, and if the company is selling to businesses or consumers. Product management is done differently from one business to the next. Variations in roles by Industry and Growth Stage.A product manager job description will depend on the responsibilities a role has and the activities it does. In most businesses, there are several different roles that are involved in product management. That includes ensuring the product supports the company’s strategy and goals. They also provide the product vision and leadership for the many other roles involved in developing, supporting, marketing and selling the product.
That includes working out what customers want, helping the business to build the right product and then supporting the business to sell it. A Product Manager is in charge of a product throughout its product lifecycle.
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