What is Product Management?
Product management is the oversight of various activities that start from conceiving a product idea, all the way to launching a potentially successful product.

A product manager is at the center and often the leader of the product development team. They are responsible for finalizing the product vision and making sure that everyone involved stays true to it for the entirety of the product roadmap.

The activities that typically come under the product management umbrella are:

-Managing the new product development process
-Coordinating between product owners and stakeholders
-Developing the general product strategy
-Addressing customer feedback and prioritizing customer needs
-Implementing strategic decision-making throughout the product life cycle

In short, anything to do with deciding how a product should work, what features it should have, and what customer pain points it should address, all of that is the responsibility of the product manager.

It's important to not confuse product management with 'project management', which is based more on planning and monitoring, instead of hands-on management.

Product Management Roles and Responsibilities
As mentioned earlier, manager roles are now more diverse than ever in terms of specific responsibilities, especially with agile scrum software development replacing the traditional waterfall methodology.

However, there are still some basic responsibilities that all product managers have to take on as part of the role.

Here are the 5 prime responsibilities of the modern product manager.

1. Customer Research
Detailed customer research is the cornerstone of any good product strategy and it's the manager's job to both lead the product management team's research efforts and conduct their own research on a higher level.

One of the primary product requirements is the ability to solve an actual problem for the user. That's also one of the qualities that make it a good product-market fit.

While conducting research, product managers are responsible for:

-Gaining full expertise about the immediate and expanded market of the product
-Creating user personas based on detailed analysis of user stories and typical use cases
-Analyzing competitor strategy and product approach
-Understanding the short, intermediate, and long-term impact of the product given current market circumstances

Additionally, product managers plan and conduct customer interviews and outreach efforts, all in order to create as great a customer experience as possible.

2. Developing Product Strategy
The strategy behind the product is just as important as the quality of the product, if not more.

A strong product strategy involves considering the space the product fills in the market, implementing features that allow the product to address customer pain points, and instilling optimal functionality in the product.

While developing a product strategy, product managers are responsible for:

-Utilizing the industry knowledge they've accumulated to decide how the product should be developed
-Creating practical objectives and goals with regards to the product
-Developing a rough overview of the product as well as the development process
-Deciding on a timeline from conception to product launch

In addition to these, managers are responsible for deciding on the product vision and making sure that none of the people involved ever deviate from it.

3. Communicating Product Plans
Any product development process is incomplete without a coherent plan that dictates which activities are to take place at what time during the product roadmap.

However, the stakeholders, especially the leadership and investors have to be made aware of each part of the process. This increases the level of internal support a product has and invites constructive input from all parties involved.

While communicating the product plans, product managers have to:

-Get investors, executives, developers, and project managers on the same page
-Enable and facilitate communication channels across cross-functional teams
-Implement stakeholder feedback into the product at any stage of development
-Maintain ongoing communication with key stakeholders after launch

One important element of communicating product plans is keeping the development process open for adjustments and modifications based on feedback gathered as part of communication.

You can learn more about product management here: https://producthq.org/what-is-product-management/

If you're looking to take your product management career to the next level with a PM certification, then go here: https://producthq.org/

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