What is a Product?
“In marketing, a product is an object, or system, or service made available for consumer use as of the consumer demand; it is anything that can be offered to a market to satisfy the desire or need of a customer.” – Wikipedia
In real life, a product can be anything physical such as a mobile device, a laptop, a guitar, a t-shirt, etc. On the other hand, products can be virtual as well such as software
A product goes through different lifecycle stages such as conception/design, development, launch, support, and retirement/deprecation. There are different teams responsible for each of these lifecycles.
What is a Product Manager?
The Product Manager role is pretty ambiguous. It is very hard to find any distinct definition of this role. The Product Manager role varies between different industries, organizations, and products.
By the title, a Product Manager is typically assigned to manage a specific product. But, there can be scenarios where a Product Manager may not always manage the whole product.
It depends on how large and crucial each feature of a product is and each of the product features may have individual Product Managers aligned.
Just to give an example, in Instagram; one Product Manager may take care of the “Live Video” feature while another Product Manager may manage “Marketing”. Each one may have its own group of engineers and designers.
It is also common to see Product Managers split across different platforms. One Product Manager may manage Mobile (Android/iOS) versions of an App. The other Product Manager can take care of the Web version of the same app.
The decision of what a Product Manager does largely depend on the business model of the organization.
Does Product Managers manage people as well?
No. Product Managers are not a manager of anybody in the organization. This is intentional as Product Managers must continuously collaborate with people from different teams including engineers and designers.
If Product Managers are reporting to managers too, they may not get candid feedback from the people. It’s very important for Product Managers to be the communication hub between multiple areas within the organization. They need to be enablers and unblockers for everyone else to ensure the product vision and goals are met within the timeline.
Engineers and designers are very good in their respective fields and often they need help with cross collaborations. Product Managers play a crucial role in bridging the gaps through their excellent communication and collaboration skills.
They save time for engineers and designers so that they can solely focus on their work.
Product Managers need to talk to various stakeholders including users, and receive feedback; take data and metrics-driven decisions to build product or feature(s) to meet product or features goals/visions within the timeline.
A Product Manager is accountable for the product’s success. If a Product is failed; the Product Manager has to the accountability for the same as well.
In a nutshell, a Product Manager does a lot of things. He/she is a communication hub, researcher, a great unblocker, presenter, and accountable for the success of the product.
