The process and role of product management is hard to grasp but is becoming more popular with startups and corporations. Product management does not fit into the traditional purposes of business strategy, marketing, design, or engineering. Product management encompasses these fields, which form a new discipline relevant among corporations and startups alike.
The role of product management began with responsibilities usually reserved for engineers and developers. The goal was to find product user problems, which led to making product decisions. Since then, product leadership and management have gone far beyond a development team’s scope. Now, product managers can set a product vision and develop the roadmap meeting both the user needs and the company goals.
A product manager must have experience in different areas of marketing, production, sales, and management to be effective. A product manager does not need all the answers – he/she needs to surround him/herself with people who have the answers. For example, product managers need not know everything about shipping the products. He/she does, however, need to have a friendly relationship with people who know more about shipping than he/she knows.
The primary question a product manager needs to answer is how the company gets the best product to the market. And how do we grow our business? Under the umbrella of product management, there are several sub-concepts important to the product manager. One of these concepts is new idea management. These new ideas can be an excellent source for developing your product: these ideas should be identified and further developed.
Another way for a product manager to help grow the business is through product road mapping. These product roadmaps help a company shift towards an attitude of internal transparency. For example, a marketing team refers to the roadmap as they launch a product or develop pricing models. Each team in your company will reap the benefits of digesting the information in the product roadmap.
Each team will interpret and use the roadmap for their specific role and purpose. For example, the customer support team will be using information differently from the engineering team. The sales team will use the data differently than the product marketing team. External users of your roadmap include existing customers, investors, and potential customers.