What is Product Management? Flashcards
Designers make sure that the product is
usable and looks great
Sales and Marketing make sure that
people know about the product and they buy it
Engineers build the…
product
Data Scientists track…
product usage
What does a Product Manager do?
They figure out what to build, facilitate the actual build of it with engineers, and maintain that product.
They make sure the company is building the right product. The features in the product are what the users want and are aligned with the business goals.
What does Product boil down to? (two main areas)
- What game are we playing? (product vision, target customers, value to the customer, advantage over competitors)
- How do we keep score? (What metrics do we need to determine if we’re winning: it’s not always “are we making money.”
At the end of the day, a product manager’s job is to do what?
Make sure their users are successful and are winning. Ultimately the PM is the voice of the customer and you need to ensure that the customer derives significant value from your product.
What is a Project Manager?
Timekeepers put a plan/schedule together to get something done and keep track of your progress toward that goal. Product managers often either work with/help with project management.
What is a Program manager?
Works closely with engineers to get the product built on schedule. They are not focused on the product vision or customer’s needs, merely the need to ensure engineers have everything they need to start and continue building on time.
What is a user story?
A description of a task that Engineers read to determine how to build the product. Essentially, the product manager tells Engineers what to build through user stories. Whoever holds this responsibility is usually the product manager.
What is Product?
A product can really be anything. In this course, we define the product context as a product within a Software company. In these companies, the PM is not always responsible for the entire product, but certain sections of this product. Here, specific features can be assigned to an entire team to develop. There is an ambiguous relationship between the definition of a feature and a product and should always be clarified by the working team and/or senior leadership.
For example, Mark Zuckerberg himself was the product manager for the first iteration of Facebook. Now, there is an individual product manager for each of the LIKE icons in an individual post. PMs can also be split by experience and platform. There may be a product for an employee and their employer experiences for various companies
What are the responsibilities of a Product Manager?
They do whatever is necessary to make sure the product ‘gets shipped’.
Their responsibilities may include:
- Writing a product requirements document and user stories
- Interviewing customers
- Project management
- UX prototyping and wireframing
- Writing relevant documentation about the product you are building
- Presentations to senior leadership and stakeholders
Who are Stakeholders?
People who have input into what you are building
Internal product manager?
Someone that builds internal company products and tools for the employees to operate more efficiently.
Business to Business (B2B) product manager?
Someone that builds enterprise-level products that are solely for companies instead of individual consumers.
(The PM usually interacts with the salespeople of the company and the company employees are the users. Here the buyer of the product is a Business, and they function similarly to a wholesaler)
