WHAT IS PRODUCT MANAGEMENT
What is product management? I am sure we all have asked ourselves this question at one stage of our lives when looking to pick a tech career path or early in the learning process. Before talking about that, I would talk about what a product manager is. "A product manager is the person who identifies the customer needs and the business objectives that a product or feature (new or existing) will need to succeed and rallies a team to turn the vision into reality" or put simply "A Product Manager Represents the customer".
Now that we have clearly understood who / what a product manager is, I will dive into the definition of Product Management. "Product Management is an organizational function that guides every step of a product life cycle (new or existing)" or simply put " product management is focusing on the customer to build the best product". Also, Product management intersects between 'Product Design, Product Development, And Product Marketing.
Product Management doesn't just entail understanding the customer and their needs, but understanding the products and how they can influence the customers and the market/competitors. That's why a product manager has to have a roadmap. "A Product Roadmap is a plan that defines the goal and major steps needed to reach it". Examples of a product roadmap are Roadmaps Template. I will talk more about product roadmaps in subsequent writings.
HOW PRODUCT MANAGERS GET PRODUCTS BUILT
Most of the time if not all, we imagine the CEO in the shower and suddenly an idea pops up and he runs to his laptop and tells the engineering team to build it. Anyone who has been a CEO or Product Owner knows it's not so, or you see the guy get out of the shower and start hacking on a laptop with bright green text, occasionally solving a difficult problem. The truth is, it doesn't work like that. So, the question is how do products get built? What does a product manager do, and how?
In reality, products always pass through a product-development stage. And the Product Manager ensures the product or features pass through that phase. For now, let’s look at an overview of each stage, starting with the planning phase
THE PRODUCT-DEVELOPMENT LIFE CYCLE
Every product goes through certain important stages before they are brought to life, which are:
- Vision Development: This is the stage where ideas are collected and prioritized and then the vision for the product is written.
- Customer Understanding: This stage is a very detailed analysis of the product market, the present and the potential are performed.
- Strategy Development: In this cycle, Product strategy is created. A product strategy is a way to achieve product goals.
- Product Development: This Stage of the Cycle is also called the execution stage because at this stage they get feedback after internal testing of the product.
- Marketing and Sales: When marketing and launch plans are finalized, the sales team is trained to start distribution.
- Product Metrics: At this final stage the product is monitored to see how it is performing in the market and feedback is collected.
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