Product Manager (PM)
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Product Managers (PMs) are in charge of generating product ideas and coordinating with all the teams necessary to create and deploy that product.
While software engineers are specialists at creating software products and salespeople are specialists at selling products, the Product Manager is the middle piece that sees these products through from the moment the idea is generated to the moment the product is launched (and closely monitors performance after the launch).
To accomplish this, PMs responsibilities include:
- Understanding business priorities
- Brainstorm projects that can make progress toward those goals
- Setting measurable goals and timelines for tasks that their teams can complete
- Manage and direct the building of a product
- Strategize how to launch the product
- Measure and analyze how the product performs/is received by the public
While there are PMs that work in many industries, we focus on the ones at tech companies (day to day responsibilities are not much different though). Keep on reading below to understand Product Management within minutes.
What Do Product Managers Do?
As a PM your goals are to:
- Create and oversee the creation of products that will help solve problems of the company and its customers, users, and/or target audience.
- Identify roadblocks that may arise and try to prevent them from slowing down or hindering any potential progress (with respect to product development and/or the launch of the product).
Product Manager Real-Life Analogy
To help understand what the purpose or value-add of a PM is, we compare a PM to an orchestra conductor (inspired by Ale Carlos):
An orchestra conductor usually does not know how to play every instrument, but they have a large team of individuals who are experts at their specific instrument. The conductor’s job is to:
- Decide what will be played by the orchestra
- Give high-level instructions to the musicians
- Manage how you want the piece to be played
- Set the pace of the piece being played, etc.
The conductor doesn’t tell the clarinetist how to play clarinet, but they give them expectations and the clarinetist needs to meet those standards. If the conductor’s instructions are unclear, or the way they manage the orchestra is poor, the performance falls apart.
Product Management Project Example:
Hypothetical project for a PM at an online food order/delivery company:
- Define the company goal – Increase user order rate. Need to ask, what makes a user order?
- Find a pattern or potential insight – For example, users who had many restaurants available, when they open the app, were more likely to order
- Questions might arise that need to be answered – How do you onboard more restaurants? Perhaps focus on large enterprises that own dozens or hundreds of restaurants nationwide.
- Find a potential solution – Might work with McDonald’s (for example) to create sales and marketing incentives for them on your platform. For example, maybe McDonald’s wants you to display their menu with the most expensive items at the top because that will cause users to spend more.
- Work with the Sales/Business Development team(s) – Direct them on how to pitch/reach out to McDonald’s.
- Product Design and Development – After coordinating with the McDonalds team to integrate their requirements/desires, you need to design the user experience for the McDonalds selection (in this case, how to make the menu look on the app).
- Create the product – Build the product, test to make sure it works, fix bugs, and repeat until it is ready to publicly launch. This is done by working closely with software engineers, who develop the actual product.
- Launch in pilot-market (1-2 cities/few locations) – Closely follow this launch and detect bugs, fix any problems, and measure the impact of the product (Impact might be: are we increasing user order rate? Did the change cause any unexpected issues?, etc).
- Scale the product: to various cities, if all goes well. during the pilot-market launch.
What does the Product Manager do during this process?
Besides being a problem solver and a good “team manager”, a large part of being a Product Manager is strong communication skills. This includes asking a lot of the right questions and listening closely when different teams answer your questions. Understanding the bigger picture and connecting the dots between various team members is essential to creating a product and launching it effectively and efficiently.
What is the difference between Product Management (PM) and Product Marketing Management (PMM)?
Simply put, PM’s are responsible for the creation and development of the product and PMMs are responsible for the customer. It is the job of the PM to understand the vision of a product and how to guide the software and product team to create that product as best as possible. While their main focuses may differ, PMs and PMMs work very closely together to make sure each area of the business is functioning in the best way possible.
Typical Product Manager Hierarchy:
While this varies from company to company, a typical hierarchy looks as follows:
- Junior/Associate PM
- Product Manager
- Senior PM
- Product Lead/Lead PM
- Product Director/Group PM
- VP of Product/Product Lead
- Chief Product Officer (CPO)
5 Different Types of Product Managers
An interesting aspect of being a Product Manager is that people with very different skillsets can be just as successful in different ways. There are many different types of PMs and their specific day to day tasks depends on their skillset/background and/or the type of company they work at. While this is not the only way to bucket PMs, here are some examples of Product Managers:
- Technical PMs – Require some computer science/programming background. Work closely with the software/development teams.
- Analytical PM – Similar to the Technical PM but more data-focused, might work with the data science team or conduct data science analysis to drive business/product decisions.
- Non-technical PMs – More consumer-facing, and design focused
- Platform PMs – Might build internal tools (a platform is some “infrastructure” you build products on).
- Business to Business (B2B) PMs – Build products that are sold/provided to enterprise/business clients rather than “customers”.
Tools & Processes Product Managers Use
- Scrum/Sprints – A process/framework that helps teams work together effectively and quickly. Finite goals are set to be reached over a predetermined timeframe.
- Lean startup – A process/methodology intended to shorten the time it takes to develop product/business ideas and more quickly identify if the idea has a viable business model (is it profitable, realistic to implement, etc).
- Calendar – As a PM you will be responsible for many product processes at once. Being organized and meeting with various teams will be essential to your success.
- Email – Used to communicate with your team members throughout projects
- Docs – Used to record and take notes of potential ideas and current ideas. Also important for recording feedback you receive so you can relay the feedback to other team members in meetings, etc.
What types of skills, mentality, etc. are necessary to be a successful Product Manager?
- Entrepreneurial – PMs ultimately are responsible for creating products that help the company solve its or its customers’ problem(s). It’s very important to have an understanding of the bigger picture and the business side of things.
- Listening – Being a good listener is essential as a PM because, at the end of the day, your job is to be a team manager. You need to listen to feedback and respond to that feedback appropriately.
- Organized – As a manager, it is essential you stay organized and properly keep track of the various products you are in charge of.
- Creative – PMs are problem solvers, and often this calls for creative solutions. Whether it be creative Product ideas, creative designs, creative ways to fix issues that arise, etc.
What are some challenges of being a Product Manager?
While being a PM has many benefits, it also has some challenges:
- As a PM you have a lot of responsibility. While this is often seen as a positive, it can be very stressful at times to know that you are responsible for the outcome of a project/product.
- Sometimes the questions/problems you need to solve are very ambiguous and confusing. It can be very difficult and require a lot of creativity and teamwork.
- You are a manager of people, which sometimes calls for demanding results. This can be a difficult thing to do/can be uncomfortable at times.
- Sometimes, the PM might not have much authority at a firm. Might have to get efforts approved by higher-ups first. Can be difficult managing a project if you do not have enough authority to call your shots (for ex. it can slow things down)
What are some benefits of being a Product Manager?
- You set your own schedule
- You are in charge and responsible for a product/project’s outcome, which can be very empowering
- A lot of industries/companies have PMs or value PM’s skillset/experience, so you will have a lot of job opportunities
- Broad exposure to many teams, from Software, to marketing, etc.
- Rewarding to see a project through from start to finish
- Learn a lot about different things as you work on various products/projects.
- Are often given a lot of responsibility and authority as a manager of several products.
Typical Salary?
Total entry-level compensation for a PM, on average, falls between 70k-180k. This includes a base salary + an equity bonus and/or a cash bonus.
According to Indeed, the average PM makes around $110k.
Should I become a Product Manager?
Product Managers gain very broad exposure to many different areas from software development, marketing, design, business, etc. This experience provides product managers with many exit opportunities, including working your way up the PM seniority ladder, switching to another company in a manager role, working at a startup, creating your own company, Consulting, Venture Capital, or any entrepreneurial role.
The combination of great work-life balance, high compensation, and creative/exciting work makes Product Management a very popular career. If you are interested in being deeply involved (and in many ways in charge) of the product development process, you should consider looking into Product Management.
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