What Is Product Management All About?
by 
Product managers play a very important role within their companies, building strategies and product roadmaps, conceptualizing new features and product enhancements, studying competition and market opportunities, and analyzing data and forecasting. They are practically everywhere and doing almost everything.
With the vast scope of product managers, it can be quite challenging to fully comprehend what they actually do. Here we outline the basic responsibilities involved in product management. If you are considering applying for this type of job, having a sneak peak of the role will help you decide if pursuing a career as a project manager is something that will complement your skills and interests.
Ideation
Every great product starts from a great idea, and it is the product manager who is in charge of creating new ideas for the next product or enhancement. This process involves the collection, curation, and promotion of the most relevant ideas into innovative features that will lead to the achievement of the business’ key objectives and goals. They also take note of feedback and requests from their customers, incorporating valuable ones into their product planning and development process.
Development of Product Vision and Strategy
A product manager’s main role is to provide product vision and strategy. They lead the product team into a successful creation of a brand new product or the release of an improved version of their product by effectively communicating to them the business value of the product. They are responsible for the smooth completion of the product, collaborating with various business units such as the engineering team.
Management of Releases
It is the product manager who plans for what will be delivered and when to deliver them. They own the release of the product, creating the master release, identifying the features and dependencies across every release, and setting the phases and milestones.
Description of Features
Before a product is completed and offered to the market, the product manager outlines the details and features of the product, specifying what needs to be done and by when. They provide this information to the various teams involved in the production process, meticulously articulating the requirements of the product so it is successfully completed and launched.
Support to Customer Related Teams
Although product managers are mainly involved in making product decisions, they are not confined in this area alone. They are responsible for the success of the product, so they are also expected to provide constant support to business units that deal directly with customers, including sales, marketing, and customer support. This ensures that the teams know what the product is all about and are able to effectively promote these and provide the appropriate after sales support.
As you can see, product management is such an all-encompassing career that involves a lot of creativity, communication, and coordination. It also involves keeping an open mind to suggestions and feedback from users so you come up with innovations that will matter to them. If you want to know more about the field, we encourage you to sign up for product manager training in New York or in your local area.
Michelle Rubio has been writing for SMEs across the United States, Canada, Australia and the UK for the last five years. She is a highly-experienced blogger and SEO copywriter, writing business blogs for various industries such as marketing, law, health and wellness, beauty, and education, particularly on product management training such as those offered by ProductSchool.com.
