by Nico / YuwanZhang
Nowadays , the role of product management has became a popular career especially in IT/ Software Industry .At scale , the title of product owner , product manager , scrum master are highly revelant to the role of product management .
Since I had six years experiences as a product manager , I love this job because every stage of product lifecycle , the responsibilities , outputs and disciplines as a role of product management are different thus a wide range of skills and knowledge play a inevitable role .
The responsiblites varies based on the life-cycle of product
As you can see , the life-cycle of one product normally including plan ,define ,build ,market , support ,measure and so on . Based on the stage of the development of product ,the daily routine and responsiblities are quite different .
(a) Plan , This relate to the strategic plan and vision in the next multiple years ,normally the output is not only come from the role of product management , but the whole company . The wide of range of perspectives to get from different stakeholders in the company , the more accurate the plan will be . As a role of product management need to focus on the marketing size &growth , competitve analysis , portfolio planning and so on .
Relate to the market size and growth , pm can not just focus on the market which their product focus on but the whole market ,for example based on the revenue record during recent years , we found out that mibile product are making more profit than the pc product , then the plan of product need to change to make more resources to focus on the development of mobile product .
Relate to the competitive analysis , this method is not for pm to copy the features or functions from other competitive product but to understand the market well and make sure our solutions ,adoption of technologies and requirements can meet/exceed customer need which are competitive .The more up-to-date knowledge what we get from our competitors , the more competitive our product can be through the iteration .
To understand our own product in a deepful measure , we normally introduct the tool of SWOT ,in which we can learn our product key strengths ,weakness ,opportunities and threats which include internal threats and external threats . Considering to external threats , it is important to use the tool of PESTLE , through analysis of political ,economy ,social ,technology ,law and environment we can understand external threats well .
(b) Define , prototype is the output in this phase at scale , prototype can be designed in any tool ,for me I use the Axure ,Sketch and paper drawing , actually prototype is the easy way to define ,design and iterate according to the feedback from stakeholders in which case can reduce the occurrence of risk and error .
In addition , we need to define a product which is product- market fit ,it means the product need to be desirable to the customers , be viable in the market place , be possible with existing/new technology . not just to define the product what you want .
Sometimes ,maybe the internal development team can not build the product on their own ,in which case the company need to collaborate with or buy from external suppliers or partners . As PM need to be highly involved with the their-party negotiations to make sure the suppliers can meet the deadline and requirements .
(c) Build ,in agile management especially scrum framework , the role of Product Owner prioritize the work in some companies , and in other companies can be called Product manager . Product owner is acting like a bridge connecting bewteen the stakeholders and development team to make sure every body has the same vision and goal of the product on the same page through daily communication , prioritizing the backlogs , considering the risks and make sure the work of development team in order and effective .
In a nutshell , Product owner is one role in a scrum team however Product manager is one kind of job no matter what kind of framework of management be used . In many cases , Product manager act as Product owner when the team use scrum .
As a role of Product Manager , it is essential to know the difference between Product Backlog and Sprint Backlog . Product Backlog is owned by PO/PM is the whole requirements of the product which in the form of User stories , tasks ,epics ,bugs and so on and ordered by priority number ;Nonetheless , Sprint Backlog is owned by Development Team is subset of product backlog , it's several technical tasks which need be implemented by team member .
(d) Marketing ,product manager who knows the product in any detail need lead or support the process of product marketing ,support the process of packaging ,training sales teams,stategies of marketing and any rescources need to be made during marketing
(e) Support ,except to collaborate well with Dev , product manager also need support the work of Ops including provide any technical support , training ,bug sovling, getting feedback and so on .
(f) Measure , QA plays an important role before the releasement of product and there are many methods can be used in the measure stage such as A/B testing in which can reduce the risks and enhance the values , customer data can be used to identify the pattern and to predict the future
References
Kenrik Kniberg ,Oct 2012 ,Agile Product Ownership in a nutshell ,available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=502ILHjX9EE
PM Diego Granados ,Mar 2021 ,Product Manager vs Product Owner - are they different? ,available from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sRPxQH2MjII
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