An Effective Product Manager: The Visionary Of Multiple Responsibilities

Product managers are responsible not just for the technical side of the product, but of its heart and soul.

The main difference of PM from any management position is the necessity to be involved in the product creation directly. The manager is not about producing, but about understanding the techniques and showing the direction for all the teams, as the PM should have the final image of the product.

Technical Product Manager

Talking about the technical side of the product you may imagine a group of geeks coding something 24/7. The technical PM doesn’t coordinate the working process of those guys (as they often know better all the nuances of the coding routine).

The management role is aimed at establishing the main course of action for all the teams working on that particular product, and technical PM is just that another visionary with the technical background. He knows how to approach the geeks, how to manage the whole soft developing cycle, as he is literate in the technical details.

Product Marketing Manager

Probably, the most challenging position for a PM, because he should represent a voice of a customer in many terms: as a soft user, as a price-concerned buyer, as post-purchase support needing customer, etc. The very essence of the product marketing manager is the ability to step out of the whole huge company working on the product, the ability to forget about all those efforts all of those teams in a huge company have put in it, and just keep critical and sober mind to evaluate what you’ve got to present your customers.

The position requires a lot of communication and improvement on the basis of customers’ feedback. Time matters and PM knows that: he constantly changes and improves his road map, for example on Craft, to share with the working teams.

Product Development Manager

The coding team has proudly presented their work, the market is well-researched and the product is ready to be taken to its next development cycle. The development process implies the PM to catch the air of flexibility in the market in order to find the right niche for the product. That is a much more requiring task than the evaluation and price-setting stage.

Product development touches all the unaccomplished expectations of the customers, providing the value and quality they haven’t experienced before. Product Manager is not only about the position but about the inspired and creative person every company holds dear. The main feature which makes this position outstanding is the experience.

Forget about the best colleges for you can’t be taught the challenges you will face being a PM and you will only value the victories after having passed all the pleasant (and mostly very stressing) stages of the product creation and development.

The role of a Product Manager is one of the most intriguing and challenging you’ll find in technology companies today. Essentially, the product manager decides what direction a product will go in and makes sure it gets there.

How do they do this? Through a combination of:

• Research
• Strategizing
• Ideation
• Prioritization
• Communication
  

Originally published at https://dzone.com/articles/product-manager-the-visionary-of-multiple-responsi