3.3 – Product Management & Product Road Mapping
As a company stabilizes and grows, it needs to put formalized processes in place for product development and product management. This module covers:
- Making product management decisions
- Prioritizing features and functions in the product road-map
- Building a complementary product / service portfolio
At the end of this module you will be able to:
- Recall traits of an effective Product Manager
- Extend the product / service development timeline by considering the value of team acquisitions
- Describe the importance of product-market fit
Section A: Role of a Product Manager
A Product Manager (PM) becomes the “CEO of the Product.” The PM owns the product / service road map, makes decisions, and determines the product / service strategy that meets the best interests of the customer. Traits of a good PM include the following:
- Has a deep understanding of the customer, their needs, and the problem the product or service aims to solve.
- Has the ability to manage tradeoffs between conflicting areas of the business. A PM may need to balance the engineering costs associated with newly added features
- with the business impact of increasing revenue to support these new costs.
- Works with cross functional teams that could include marketing, engineering, design, sales, and data science.
- Sets and manages timelines.
- Works with the sales and marketing teams to manage feature requests, determine sales goals of the product / service, and on product / service messaging.
- Lobbies for additional resources from other departments as needed.
The role of a Product Manager is part lobbyist, part politician, part CEO, and part project manager.
Traits to Look For in Hiring a PM:
- Customer mindset: They aim to solve the customers’ problems.
- Ability to prioritize: They determine the trade-offs among product features, revenue, engineering costs, timelines, etc.
- Ability to execute: They can work with teams to build and ship your product / service efficiently.
- Pulse on the landscape: They understand your particular industry and know what products / services competitors are launching.
- Data driven approach: They use data to make decisions regarding features to build and trade-offs to make.
Finding the right product manager is essential! Watch this video to learn what traits Sarah Butts, Sinan Mohsin, Boyd Reid, and Hanna Haponenko look for when hiring a product manager.
Hiring Managers & Executives
If you are running a fast growing company, your structure may change rapidly. When hiring senior people into management or executive level roles, hire people that would be a good fit for the role over the next 12 to 18 months.
Traits to Look For In Managers & Executives
- Do they have functional area expertise? Do they have credibility in their field and a deep understanding of their craft?
- Do they fit with the current state of the company size and sophistication?
- Do they have a strong network and can they recruit s