TechAbout - Work Domain
A Product Manager is responsible for managing a set of products or product lines throughout their lifecycle, from ideation through development, launch, sale, and eventually discontinuation. They act as the interface between the market and the product team during development, representing the voice of the customer. Additionally, they manage the product portfolio to maximize sales and profitability.
Product Managers assess the market to identify opportunities for new products, leading efforts to understand customer needs and define requirements. They manage activities that support the commercial launch of new products. While they help plan and manage the product line, they do not have overall profit and loss responsibility; they rely heavily on Finance to develop business cases, and executive management plays a more dominant role in planning and managing the product portfolio. Product Managers operate as peers within the product teams.
Ideation
The Product Manager solicits and contributes ideas for new products, collects information, analyzes, and helps evaluate new product concepts.
Market Analysis
The Product Manager maintains constant surveillance and awareness of the market, effectively identifying customer needs and trends.
Competitive Analysis
The Product Manager stays aware of competitive products, potential competitors, and competitor capabilities. They actively collect and analyze data, organize competitive intelligence efforts, and use this information effectively in new product development. They assess the strengths and weaknesses of proposed products relative to competitors, anticipate competitive responses, and consider these factors when developing sales projections.
Preparation of Voice of the Customer (VOC) Plan
The Product Manager proactively develops a plan for collecting VOC data early in the development cycle. This plan includes methods to be used, customer definitions, required resources, and a schedule for the investigation.
Familiarity with Voice of the Customer Methods
The Product Manager is familiar with VOC methods, including market research, interviews, focus groups, ethnographic research, usability studies, and more. They apply these techniques to understand both stated and latent customer needs, ensuring that customer needs are accurately reflected in the product requirements.
Customer Needs Definition
The Product Manager develops a comprehensive understanding of customer needs, balancing collected information with risks, market potential, cost, and schedule considerations.
Requirements Development
The Product Manager collaborates with the team to develop a comprehensive set of requirements that address all defined customer needs. These requirements are communicated effectively to ensure consistent understanding across the team. Product requirements are managed to minimize changes during development, with any changes carefully evaluated to reduce disruption.
Use of Product Planning & Definition Methods
The Product Manager uses structured approaches like Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to translate customer needs into product requirements and to develop a product plan.
Enhance Value Proposition
The Product Manager balances requirements with cost to maximize the value proposition to the customer, using techniques such as conjoint analysis or other value assessment methods.
Product Positioning & Strategy
The Product Manager integrates overall company strategy, product line plans, competitive analysis, and customer needs into an effective product strategy and market positioning.
Product Line Planning & Strategy
The Product Manager contributes appropriately to the development of an overall product line plan and strategy.
Product Line Roadmaps
The Product Manager contributes to, develops, and maintains product roadmaps and other representations of the product line plan and strategy, ensuring these documents are kept up to date.
Product Forecasting
The Product Manager uses a reasoned approach to develop forecasts of customer demand and maintains these forecasts as customer demand changes. They communicate these forecasts within the organization and analyze variances between forecasted and actual demand to refine their forecasting approach.
Business Case Development
The Product Manager works effectively with product team members and Finance to develop a realistic business case. They monitor the project and environment, updating the business case as required.
Portfolio Planning
The Product Manager provides analysis to support product portfolio planning. If involved in portfolio planning with management, they offer useful insights to prioritize development programs.
Analyze and Rationalize Product Portfolio
The Product Manager regularly reviews their product line or portfolio to identify needed actions, such as discontinuing underperforming products, eliminating overlaps, or repositioning or relaunching products.
Communicate Product Plans & Strategy with Management
The Product Manager effectively communicates product plans and strategies with management to obtain required decisions, resources, and support, minimizing surprises.
Communicate Product Plans & Strategy with Team Members
The Product Manager communicates product plans and strategies with team members to ensure understanding and obtain consensus where necessary. As a result, team members are well-aligned with overall plans and understand program direction and needed actions.
Project Management
The Product Manager works effectively with the project manager, helping to plan the project, providing guidance, and monitoring project results.
Gate Reviews
The Product Manager assembles the necessary information to support gate reviews and provides critical analysis to help management make informed decisions.
Gather Customer Feedback
During development, the Product Manager gathers customer feedback from prototypes or mock-ups and communicates the results to the appropriate team members, using this feedback to guide project decisions.
Develop Promotional Plan
The Product Manager prepares a comprehensive and well-thought-out promotional plan that details strategy, needed actions, and key messages for promotion and advertising.
Evaluate and Define Distribution Channels
The Product Manager evaluates and defines distribution channels, considering new channels when appropriate.
Develop Distribution Channels
The Product Manager works with existing distribution channels to improve their effectiveness and develops new channels as required. They negotiate arrangements with new distribution channels when needed.
Evaluate and Refine Promotional & Marketing Messages
The Product Manager collaborates with marketing, advertising agencies, and PR firms to develop, evaluate, and refine the product’s promotional and marketing messages to create an effective promotional program.
Execute Promotional Plan
The Product Manager oversees and manages the execution of the promotional plan, taking corrective action as needed to keep the plan on track and revising it when necessary.
Plan Test Markets & Beta Tests
During development, the Product Manager plans any required beta test programs or test market initiatives.
Manage Usability Testing, Beta Testing, & Test Marketing
The Product Manager manages usability testing, beta testing, and test marketing programs. They assess the results and take appropriate corrective actions.
Evaluate and Establish Pricing
The Product Manager evaluates the market and competition to establish product pricing that maximizes profit and long-term sales.
Support Customers and Channel Partners
The Product Manager supports customer proposals and presentations, ensuring all relevant materials are available. They create tools that enable sales channels and customers to evaluate product options.
Coordinate & Manage Product Launch
The Product Manager effectively coordinates and manages the launch of new products.
Promote Product
The Product Manager proactively promotes the product to customers, analysts, social media, and the press.
Monitor Product Results
The Product Manager tracks product performance by monitoring key performance indicators, including revenue, cost savings, margin, market share, customer feedback, and other relevant metrics.
Management Reporting
The Product Manager provides regular and ongoing reporting for management-level operational reviews.
Manage Product Lifecycle
Based on product performance, the Product Manager determines when actions are needed to upgrade, improve, revise, or reposition products. They develop appropriate plans, marshal resources, and execute these changes. They also decide when to discontinue existing products and develop plans to phase out products while migrating customers to new offerings.