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How to be a good product manager ?
Well I know there is a wonderful blog by this name, but I thought it would be worth trying to know it here from your collective experience here. Share your tips, recommendations, lessons and experiences here on how to become a good product manager and the things required to become successful in this field ?
Good Answers (1)
Eyal K
Business Development Manager at Check Point Software Technologies
Best Answers in: Venture Capital and Private Equity (1), Product Design (1), Business Plans (1)
This is an excellent question.
I guess that you already noticed that the product manager job is a focal point in the organization and many interests are channeled to your doorstep. From my experience, various groups in your organization will try to influence you in various ways so your life isn’t going to be easy.
My suggestion is to start with determining, like in every job, what value you can add to the process. Since the role of the PM is horizontal, many companies are solving the issue by assigning PMs in every unit of the organization. In many companies, there are 3 or 4 product managers - R&D product manager, Product Marketing Manager and Product Sales Manager – all for the same product/ products line. In some place there is a Product Manager in Customer Support as well.
I don’t know what the size of the company you are employed in is and if there are additional product managers working with you. My suggestion to you is to figure out where you can contribute the most out of your experience / expertise – start from this point and build your status in the organization based on your short term achievements. Since the role is very political, you need to show your value as soon as possible.
In other works, if you think that your strength is in dealing with costumers, think how you can support the sales activities. If it is in marketing, start with defining the product collateral and think how to position the product better and find new markets for it. If you emerged from R&D, use your experience to define the product roadmap, add new features and improve the time to market. A good product manager is someone that can manage with all these areas (and more of course – these are only examples).
In short, what I am trying to say that the PM job is complex and open-ended. The challenge is finding your value in the company and become influential (yes, office politics…). The advantage here is that in most cases you can determine your own destiny (your job spec), and this is always fun. Good luck!
More Answers (15)
Chetan Kohli (
(TopLinked.com) Business Dev. Manager/Investment Advicer at UKLI Real Estate Pvt. Ltd. / UKLI
Best Answers in: Personal Investing (2), Personal Real Estate (2), Education and Schools (1), Certification and Licenses (1), Hedge Funds (1), Supply Chain Management (1), Using LinkedIn (1)
Courtesy of Ben Horowitz
Good product managers know the market, the product, the product line and
the competition extremely well and operate from a strong basis of
knowledge and confidence. A good product manager is the CEO of the
product. A good product manager takes full responsibility and measures
themselves in terms of the success of the product. The are responsible
for right product/right time and all that entails. A good product
manager knows the context going in (the company, our revenue funding,
competition, etc.), and they take responsibility for devising and
executing a winning plan (no excuses).
Bad product managers have lots of excuses. Not enough funding, the
engineering manager is an idiot, Microsoft has 10 times as many engineers
working on it, I'm overworked, I don't get enough direction. Barksdale
doesn't make these kinds of excuses and neither should the CEO of a
product.
Good product managers don't get all of their time sucked up by the
various organizations that must work together to deliver right product
right time. They don't take all the product team minutes, they don't
project manage the various functions, they are not gophers for
engineering. They are not part of the product team; they manage the
product team. Engineering teams don't consider Good Product Managers a
"marketing resource." Good product managers are the marketing counterpart
of the engineering manager. Good product managers crisply define the
target, the "what" (as opposed to the how) and manage the delivery of the
"what." Bad product managers feel best about themselves when they figure
out "how". Good product managers communicate crisply to engineering in
writing as well as verbally. Good product managers don't give direction
informally. Good product managers gather information informally.
Good product managers create leveragable collateral, FAQs, presentations,
white papers. Bad product managers complain that they spend all day
answering questions for the sales force and are swamped. Good product
managers anticipate the serious product flaws and build real solutions.
Good product managers take
written positions on important issues (competitive silver bullets, tough
architectural choices, tough product decisions, markets to attack or
yield).
Good product managers focus the team on revenue and customers.
Good product managers define good products that can be executed with a
strong effort.
Good product managers think in terms of delivering superior value to the
market place during inbound planning and achieving market share and
revenue goals during outbound. Good product managers decompose
problems.
Good product managers think about the story they want written by the
press. Good product managers ask the
press questions.
Good product managers err on the side of clarity vs. explaining the
obvious. Good product
managers define their job and their success.
Good product managers send their status reports in on time every week,
because they are disciplined.
Links:
Just a small advice: do not pretend to be the genius, an listen to what the other people involved in the project has to say.
I think a good PM should continuously learn and improve. Adaptation to new trends and strategizing according to new challenges are questions PMs have to answer every day.
A few of my posts -
http://www.pluggd.in/2007/06/product-management-to-be-or-not-to-behtml
http://www.pluggd.in/2007/07/jobs-of-pmhtml
Raman S
Dynamic Marketing Professional currently at Picsel. Passionate, results oriented and committed to excellence.
Good Product management is all about market know-how, competitions, product roadmap, timely SKU management, understanding of supply chain management and all the function related to managing inventory, pricing, margin and the skill to communicate all this technical jargon in an easy understandable way to all relevant in company.
product manager in this capacity is the sole person responsible to make or break the product and company market shares in that category. so it is all about be quick, responsive and take timely action to communicate offers, promotions and marketing know-how for all in sales to sell.
alliance marketing, tie-up & affordability (ex-credit tie-up) anything on this side, which can make your product affordable and easy to acquire helps consumers buy it more. and makes you/company successful.
i believe it is the most important job that one can get in a company, being a product manager is being the soul of the company for that product category.
Patricia Christine Z
Marketing Director - Strategy&Planning T-Mobile / Board Member Seattle 89.5FM
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (8), Advertising (1), Direct Marketing (1), Viral Marketing (1), Business Development (1)
well this does say product manager...not brand manager...but to be a good brand / product manager think about what's Right for the Brand. what's Right for the brand strategically should help to cut through politics (i say should help...not always as the other people you're working with also need to think about what's right for the brand). and what's Right for the Brand will ultimately help to grow the brand and then everybody should be happy!!
William A
Senior Project Engineer at Oceaneering Intervention Engineering
Best Answers in: Engineering (6), Product Design (1)
William A suggests this expert on this topic:
Ben would probably have some useful input on this question.
Apurba S
Product Manager at Rediff.com India Ltd (रेडीफ़. कॉम इंडिया लिमिटेड)
Best Answers in: Staffing and Recruiting (1), Software Development (1), Web Development (1)
My 2 cents:
Be genuinely good at disseminating trends from fads.It comes with keen observation only.
Objective:Learn to measure every subjective aspect of your product/service through "meaningful" "quantifiable" measures in line with your business objective.You need to know which tool to use and when.
Links:
Apurba S also suggests these experts on this topic:
Brian M
Marketing, Business, Web, Startup, Strategy - Hire me! - - - - - - - -> See more in my Specialties section
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Hi Santosh,
Cultivate:
- tenacity
- listening skills
- humility
Good luck
Brian
Sanjay S
Enterprise Architect : Architecting & optimizing organizations
Best Answers in: Product Design (1), Starting Up (1)
Learn to observe your customers and prioritize their explicit and implicit needs. Best wishes...
Product manager works at three levels.
A) He thinks. He constantly thinks of new ideas for his product. He thinks of the enhancements for the current features. He thinks thru the redundant features and their revamps. He keeps a close watch on competition. And he looks out for disruptive trends for his product.
He does that my keeping his ears to the ground, talking to customers directly, to sales people and to support people. He keeps a tab on key indicators regarding the health of his product.
B) He executes. Based on this thinking he prepares the wish list, priorities it and then ensures that it gets executed within budgets and in time. He owns the execution and makes it happen no matter what.
C) He collaborates. He will have some dedicated resources and some shared resources and some third party support. He ensures that every person who works on his product is on the same plane. He ensures that various people's work is harmonized.
The job of a product manager can be very complex, but it boils down to one simple skill: making good prioritization decisions.
Listen to your customers, first and foremost; learn about their needs. Best of all, get into their workspaces and see what challenges they're facing. Be deeply observant.
Drawing from this experience, the suggestions you get from your sales and engineering teams, and management direction, assemble the list of potential features.
Get a ballpark estimate as to the effort required for each item, and determine what resources you have that can be brought to bear.
Now prioritize this list, again based on your experience and input from your team. Weigh the effort required against the benefits derived from each item on the list.
As your team works through the items, at some point, you'll have to make the decision as to where to draw the line; items above the line will be included, and those below it will be considered at a later date.
Lather, rinse, repeat.
Links:
Manas M
Product Manager at Yahoo! (Yahoo! Search Marketing)
Best Answers in: Using LinkedIn (3), Business Development (1)
I agree with Chetan's reply completely. Only wanted to add one more point.
Good product managers try to be concise.
"Having the responsibility and not necessarily the authority"
...There have been very good responses provided by some other forum members..espescially by Chetan Kohli..hence will not repeat
Be focussed and be absolutely aware of each and every element that impacts your business at all times
Foremost...You need to be the most customer centric resource in the organisation. Understand your "changing" customer and translate the same back to your business. Your interpretation of the environment and translation into a clear business need is hence crucial. (Its not the quantum of business requirements created...but the clarity thats most important)
Create a fine balance between tactical and strategic initiatives (beyond the immediate quarter). You will work on several items that may not create economic value / profits in the immediate quarter...and hence a good product manager is one who can deliver immediate economic goals and also create long term value
Understand the various internal and stakeholders and make sure that you have prepared and address their needs clearly. (Speak their language)They will at all times seek your perspective and quite often challenge them...and that's where good product managers shine.
A good product manager has to be an extremely good "manager" and yes...you have to be the CEO of your product...the buck stops with you....
Jeff L
Product Manager at Sendouts
Best Answers in: Market Research and Definition (5), Product Design (3), Interface Design (2), Branding (1), Positioning (1), E-Commerce (1), Enterprise Software (1)
Thanks for mentioning my blog, Santosh! In addition to my blog (first link below), there are a few other resources that have covered this topic lately.
Saeed at On Product Management has just finished a series on How To Be a Great Product manager that is definitely worth reading (second link below)
I'm actually putting together a webinar for next week that's going to discuss ten tips for people new to product management (third link below) -- here's a sneak peek:
Spend time with customers
Ask “dumb” questions
Let go of your past
Surround yourself with experts
Gather data
Focus
Concentrate on what, not how
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Sell your product internally
Do whatever it takes
Ultimately, there are so many things to keep in mind when you are new to product management, but the mentality is more important than anything. Be authentic, be passionate, and be focused.
There's plenty of great blogs, articles, and webinars with tips on product management -- to be a good product manager, take advantage of them!
Links:
Obviously, Jeff Lash has a great blog by this name that every PM should read regularly.
Here's are my top things I try to remember daily:
- You are a proxy to the market, first & foremost
- You are here to solve problems and pains
- Always ask "why?"
- You are the pivot point, not the authority
- Practice saying, "I don't know."
- The vast majority of people don't understand what you do
Certainly not words to live by, but those principles continue to help me on a daily basis.