A product manager is sometimes called the CEO of a product, who, like a general manager looks after all aspects of the product and business. At times I have heard a product manager being called the janitor of the product, who cleans up the act of all parties involved, helps remove glitches and ensures the smooth running of the product.
Define product strategy and roadmaps
A product manager is responsible for defining the long term strategy of the product and express the details in a product roadmap. This roadmap and vision is what is considered as the plan of record for the engineering team to implement.
Deliver MRD’s and PRD’s
MRD’s or market requirement documents include the voice of the customer, “markitecture” and is a component of the business case. The MRD is written by the product manager with assistance from research, marketing communications, sales, engineering and finance. The PRD or the product requirements document consists of the prioritized features of the product.
Voice of the customer
The product manager is responsible for tracking user feedback, customer satisfaction, dashboards and metrics to measure success and engagement of new and existing functionalities. Anybody in the product management role works with developers, ISV’s, and evangelists to get feedback.
Tactical responsibilities
The product manager is responsible to maintain and manage technical partnerships, requirement analysis, prioritization, evaluation and negotiations of terms with engineering.
External Partnerships
Product Managers are typically required to work with external 3rd parties to assess partnerships and licensing opportunities.
Conduct competitive analysis
Every product manager needs to be the guru when it comes to knowledge about competition. Product managers researches the competition’s technology and gathers data around market share, direction of the industry and threat to the current product and business.
Internal partnerships
Product managers are required to closely work with cross functional teams such as engineering, sales, business development, evangelists and marketing to define, design and execute plans. A product manager is also required to make presentation to these teams and train them.
Perform product demos to customers.
The sales team often relies on product managers for good leads. At times its product managers who go in first to a customer to give a high level technical presentation and make a business case for the customer.
A product manager is required to wear multiple hats, and to be successful in the product management role the product manager has to perform roles such as a project manager, visionary strategist, business owner, program manager, quality assurance, user experience police and sometimes even sales, business development and marketing.
