Product Management has grown in 2020 and 2021, with a 32% increase in the last two years. The new culture of veering away from the 9 to 5 jobs and embracing more customer-centric startup culture, and with companies trying to keep up in the market, Product Management is one of the top roles in 2020 and 2021. A product manager is necessary to provide oversight and management around different aspects of the products, to act as the voice of the actual user to provide visibility and transparency for the decisions taken during product development.
Purpose of Product Management
Product Management is a term used to describe the process of product development strategy, its execution and delivery, and the measure of the success of the product. It is done keeping in mind the company goals, market requirements, product feature ROI, potential competition, etc. The product vision addresses the reason for the development and need of the product, what pain points or problems it solves. The product strategy is the illustration of this vision in the form of a roadmap that consists of the product features, requirements, and other criteria.
What Skills Do Product Managers Require?
Different people have a different answer to the question ‘What is the role of a Product Manager?’. Since every company has its expectation of the variety of roles undertaken by the product manager, you get different opinions. There are 4 broad areas where a PM aspirant needs to succeed in a role.
- Business: A Product Manager needs to make that what they are building will be successful in the market. Business-related skills like Forecasting, Strategy, Top-Down Marketing Analysis, Bottom-Up Marketing Strategy, Pricing, Packaging, etc. are to make sure that your product is viable and fits the company goals.
- Technology: Keeping up with the latest technology, being able to communicate effectively with the engineering team, and to contribute in design discussions. Involvement in Software Development Life Cycles, understanding tech trends, comprehending engineering efforts and progress, establishing rapport and trust with the engineering team.
- Design: The PM needs to have a product sense to be able to stand out from the competition. Delighting customers over time builds a habit, which in turn builds investments. Once customers become dependent on the product, they are less sensitive to cost. A product manager needs a good grasp of design skills to communicate with the UX team with ease. Skills like product sense, growth, product stickiness, visual design, user experience, customer delight, frictionless experience, etc.
- Domain Expertise: This refers to having a deeper understanding of the product space. They should have an extensive network and a strong knowledge of competitions. They have a clear understanding of their industry including customers and competitive analysis.
The Unicorn Product Management
Unicorns are a very rare group of people who are specialists in multiple fields like UX, UI, and development. They can be confused with generalists but are a sort of hyper specialists who have mastered multiple disciplines over multiple crafts. Generalists with in-depth knowledge of two crafts do not exactly qualify as a ‘unicorn’, since unicorns have expert knowledge or mastery in several crafts. These generalists are stuck in the middle, not expert enough to manage multiple roles, and overqualified for those who want to hire someone who will stick to a single aspect and is not expected to be involved in multiple areas.
The above-mentioned four categories are important for a PM, and one rarely has in-depth knowledge of all four categories but it is expected that you must be an expert in at least two of them. The most ideal and rarest Product Manager would be one who can boast to be an expert in all four.
What does your company need?
You only need a specialist if there is work available in their discipline that would keep them engaged for a couple of years or their contract duration. If this is not the case, do not hire them. There won’t be enough to keep them engaged and their skills and your investment will not be efficiently used. A specialist’s knowledge of a discipline outside their skillset is going to be lower than that of a generalist or a unicorn, so you cannot ask them to be involved in things outside of their discipline. If on the rare occasion, you manage to find a unicorn, they are best to lead the efforts in building a product under a time limit. This maximizes their value to the company and minimizes the fragmentation of their time.
However, it is reasonable for one person to manage multiple projects or expect them to fill a gap if they enjoy learning new aspects. Mentoring juniors about their craft is also a reasonable expectation from someone who has the experience to share. Generalists are best suited to contribute whenever and wherever moderate knowledge is needed and to translate between specialists. Their broad knowledge allows them to visualize an overall picture of the product’s success. The best kind learns to adapt quickly and act as a glue that holds the team together.
