A Product Manager is anyone who leads a product development project.
They are usually IT project managers who are responsible for the planning, forecasting, marketing and production of a product.
What is Product Management ?
Product management is the planning, marketing and development of products and it involves the organization’s people, data and business processes.
Product management is a mix of both marketing and product development, so the ideal Product Manager would be experienced in both fields.
The product management approach is used because it has been proven to help maximize sales, revenue, market share and profit margins of an organization.
This is because it focuses on the creation of new products that are beneficial and value adding to the customer.
So how does a Product Manager help with product management ?
Product Managers are strategists who are responsible for turning the product vision into a reality.
They do this by analyzing the market and competitive conditions to identify the customer’s need and create a product that would fulfil that need.
How is a Product created ?
To create a viable product, the product has to fulfill the customer’s needs. So the first step in product creation is to identify the customers needs.
The customer’s needs can be identified through market research, customer feedback, analyzing competitors products and sales analysis.
Once a potential customer need is identified, then a product plan would have to be created to define what the product would look like, what the product team would need to deliver and when they would have to deliver it.
The Product team is usually made up of people from different departments in the organization.
There team members bring different areas of expertise and so its important to identify the appropriate team members.
Once the team is assembled, the Product Manager has effectively manage the diverse team members so that they can work efficiently and effectively.
What are some of the skills that a Product Manager should have ?
An experienced Product Manager should have the following skills:
- Identify the customer needs through research and market data.
- Lead the product team so that they can create new products.
- Outline the product marketing objectives and analyze the competition’s products.
- Effectively work with the sales and marketing team to create product sales strategies.
- Analyze market data to help forecast the product sales.
Though it would be nice for a new Product Manager to have all these skills and more, some Product Managers need to learn them on the job.
This is because many Product Manager’s start their careers in the sales and marketing departments and the transition into the Product Manager’s roles.