What it takes to become an exceptional Product Manager!

What is the role of a product manager? The role of the Product Manager (PM) is often referred to as the “CEO of the product”. Hypothetically nobody leads a product manager and product manager does not lead anybody in the organization. Product management is an interaction of User Experience, Business and Technology. Product Managers are required to interact with multiple stakeholders. They are Prioritizer, Researcher, Presenter and the person with alternative plans of success for the product at all times.

It is very necessary to have core competencies, emotional intelligence (EQ), and company fit skillset. Product Managers are not born in classrooms, instead they are developed with experience, good role models and mentoring.

Project Management and Product Management sounds complementary roles but they are different respectively. Project management is about achieving Goal X of the project timeline while product management is about achieving the overall success of the product. Product is always driven by KPIs and Metrics while projects are driven to work with diverse tasks and teams on timely development and within budget. Product and project managers see the same work through different lenses. When they join forces to collaborate, everyone benefits and the company has a win-win situation.

For any product, there are always classic 4 stages in the Product Lifecycle. They are as follows-

1. Introduction- This stage of the cycle could be the most expensive for a company launching a new product in the market to know its market fit. The size of the market for the product is small or nearly zero competition. Example of a product in their introductory stage is Microsoft Teams (Communication tools) and Calendly (Calendar tool).
2. Growth- Once it is accepted by the marketplace which helps in increased sales and profits. This makes it possible for businesses to invest more money in promotional activities to maximize the potential of this growth stage. Examples of products in their growth stage are Netflix (Streaming tool), Snapchat(Social tool), Asana(Collaboration tool), and Clientjoy (CRM-Proposal tool).
3. Maturity- When a product reaches maturity, its sales growth tends to slow down — signaling a largely saturated market. This signaling shows margin shrinking as prices begin falling due to the weight of external pressures like competition or lower demand. An example of a product in its maturity stage is Twitter (Social tool).
4. Decline- Although companies will generally attempt to keep the product alive in the maturity stage as long as possible, the decline for every product is inevitable. Eventually, the product will be retired out of the market unless it is able to redesign itself to remain relevant or in-demand. Example of a product in their decline stage is Yahoo (Mailing tool) and Microsoft Office suite (not Microsoft office 365).

Prerequisite of the product life cycle, every Product managers are required to initiate product development process as follows-

• Conceive- Brainstorming the ideas and user problems canvassing
• Plan -Market Research based on business cases and customer reviews of direct/ indirect competitors
• Develop- Place to get your hands dirty to see an outcome based on Product requirement document and technical requirement document
• Iterate- After meeting the minimal viable product phase, we are required to iterate based on customer reviews/feedback.
• Launch- Teams of Marketing, Public relations and Sales to go public with the product to solve customer's pain points.
• Steady- Hold it steady with revamping certain aspects
• Maintain/Kill- Maintaining the product with trivial changes or killing the product as the cost versus benefit is going negative or low.

For product managers, the core baseline is the ideation of the product. Conceiving of the idea and requirements can be gathered from various aspects by following the EMUC concept. E refers to the Employee of the organization, M stands for Metrics figuring the problems and inefficiencies in the market, U stands for user feedback, C stands for Clients(B2B). Thus, it is very necessary to do vigorous research on market size and competitions. For understanding the market size, it is very necessary to find direct and indirect competitors.

There are 5 criteria to be researched mainly -

• Product Name, Type of Competitor, Product’s Value Proposition, Product Core Team -This is quite important and most . One use case study of Instagram is that before getting acquired by Facebook, the core team of Instagram was 6 generalist developers. Currently, they are more than 300 manpower developer teams.
• Size of User Base — User base size allows them to get bifurcated in different tier zones.
• User Experience Design and Usability- The whole game of ease of experience of any product could change the way people perceive it.
• Brand Positioning- Either your solution is irreplaceable or it is what you offer is different. For example, there are many consumer toothpaste products in the market whose prime ingredient is Fluoride. Patanjali, an Indian brand sells toothpaste products by using the slogan of the blessing of natural products while its main ingredient is fluoride.
• Speed of Delivering — If a company has an idea then how quickly they do it and ship it in the market to get traction.

For a product manager, it is necessary to convert big data gathered from different sources to useful information. Identify all the assumptions and choose the riskiest based on time, money and opportunity cost. Based on the assumptions, we are required to create the hypothesis, establish the minimum criteria success and create a Minimal Viable Product(MVP) strategy. Once MVP is shipped, we are required to iterate and evaluate product metrics.

Once the product solution is conceptualized, we are required to create a design guide including wireframes, mockups and prototypes. They are visual guides used to roadmap a product. Wireframes (structuring the product) allow the placing of ideas and flows. They could be done on Balsamiq and Hotgloo. Mockups (Creating Appealing Visuals) help in adding fonts, pixels and mainly allowing the creation of UI. This could be done in Photoshop, Sketch and Adobe XD. Prototypes (User interactions and Usability) allows actual movement of the design, showing the user experience.

Before developing the product, it is necessary to create a product metric. In corporate terms metric are Key Performance indicators. Initially, we are required to follow growth metric and later we are required to follow engagement metrics. Once the metrics are in place, we start building products. In product development, we are required to create EPICs. EPIC Document includes Introductory summary of the product, Product requirements, Design Requirements and Engineering requirements. The introductory summary includes the mission statement, value propositions, project development roadmap. Product requirement includes the user stories and acceptance criteria. Design requirements include design guidelines, referencing research, and inspirations. Engineering requirements include the database, technology, servers. Once the product is launched, we iterate continuously adjusting their approach based on customer feedback.

To become an exceptional product manager in industry, you need to have knacks of relationship management, self-awareness, self-management and social awareness. By establishing authentic trustworthy connections with both internal and external stakeholders, the best PMs inspire people and help them reach their full potential. Relationship management is also vital in successful negotiation, resolving conflicts, and working with others toward a shared goal, which is especially challenging when a PM is tasked with balancing the needs of customers, resource-constrained engineering teams, and the company’s revenue goals. An exceptional Product manager needs to be objective, keeping their preferences after the product users expectations. Being a Product Manager, it is incredibly stressful as everybody wants one or another feature. Best PMs know how to push hard on the right priorities, with urgency but without conveying a sense of panic or stress. These PMs also know when to take a breath and step away to regroup. Being socially aware means they are able to gauge the emotions of customers who use the product as well as empathize the concerns of the Sales team about how to sell the product or Support team on how to support it or engineering team on how to develop it.

As per industry bifurcation, we have 3 different types of Product Managers.

1. Internal PMs- They built tools that contribute in supporting internal management and processes. Internal PMs is usually a great introductory role in the product management field.It allows integration with other systems of business as well as teaches knacks of project management. The example of products built like Human Resource management product, internal knowledge sharing platforms etc.
2. Consumer PMs- They build products for consumption purposes like Ecommerce or Fintech Products. Consumer PMs can explore creative aspects and have flexible roles. Consumer PMs are required to follow firm development deadlines.
3. Saas PMs- These PMs are also referred to as B2B PMs.They build products to support client’s clients. Highest learning comes to Saas PMs as there is a lot of uncertainty in feature development, pressure to acquire market by strategies and user base.It could help company to prosper or lose large.It requires extensive user testing and market fit solutions.

The Product Manager role is a lucrative occupation in the market, it is an art of juggling expectations and leveraging better strategies. To become a great Product Manager, you need to have the brain of an engineer, the heart of the Designer and speech of a diplomat.