What is Product Management?
This is a short and dirty introduction to product management. This is a short and dirty introduction to product management.
Product management is a process that focuses on bringing a new product to market or developing an existing one. It starts with an idea of a product that a customer will interact with and ends with the evaluation of the product’s success. Product management unites business, product development, marketing, and sales.
Product management is led by a… product manager. Don’t confuse the role with a project manager. A project manager is responsible for a single part of a product lifecycle — product development, while a product manager’s responsibility is to lead a product from the germ of an idea to launch, focusing on features, business value, and the customer.
The product manager is the person who creates internal and external product vision and leads product management from scratch. The product manager develops positioning strategy while working with stakeholders and teams throughout the process.
There are three major types of product managers
- Internal Product manager
- Consumer Product Manager
- Enterprise /B2B Product Manager
The main responsibilities of the product manager are:
- Understand customer experience
- Develop vision
- Prioritize processes and activities
- Develop product pricing and positioning strategies
- Negotiate with stakeholders
- Build and follow a roadmap
- Arrange product testing groups
- Drive product launch
- Participate in the promotion plan development
- Build and maintain product awareness on all levels among product teams
And these roles are typically divided into 4 main stages during a product life cycle
- Vision
- Strategy development
- Product development
- Marketing and sales
In conclusion, according to statistics, each year over 30,000 new products are launched and 85% of them fail. While there are many different reasons for this, one of the most significant is that too many products are not thoroughly prepared for the market. Neglecting one aspect of product development and focusing excessively on the other usually leads to financial losses. With proper product management, it’s possible to evade such consequences and increase chances of the product succeeding in the market.