Key Responsibilities
At one level, the responsibilities of the product manager are pretty straightforward. He or she is
responsible for evaluating opportunities and determining what gets built and delivered to
customers. We generally describe what needs to get built on the product backlog.
Sounds simple enough. And the mechanics of that are not the hard part. What’s hard is to make sure
that what goes on the product backlog is worth building. And, today, on the best teams, the
engineers and designers want to see some evidence that what you’re asking to build is truly worth
building.
In that spirit, there are four key responsibilities of a strong product manager; four things that the
rest of your team is counting on you to bring to the party:
Deep Knowledge of the Customer
First and foremost is deep knowledge of the actual users and customers. To make this explicit, you
need to become an acknowledged expert on the customer: their issues, pains, desires, how they
think—and for business products, how they work, and how they decide to buy.
This requires both qualitative learning (to understand why our users and customers behave the way
they do), and quantitative learning (to understand what they are doing)
Deep Knowledge of the Data
Product managers are expected to be comfortable with data and analytics.
A big part of knowing your customer is understanding what they’re doing with your product. Most
product managers start their day with half an hour or so in the analytics tools, understanding what’s
been happening in the past 24 hours. They’re looking at sales analytics and usage analytics. They’re
looking at the results of A/B tests.
Deep Knowledge of Your Business
The third critical contribution—and the one that is often considered the most difficult by many
product managers—is a deep understanding of your business and how it works, and the role your
product plays in your business. This is tougher than it sounds.
This means knowing who your various stakeholders are and especially learning the constraints they
operate under. There are usually key stakeholders representing general management, sales,
marketing, finance, legal, business development, and customer service. Your CEO is usually a very
important stakeholder as well.
Succeeding in the job of product means convincing each key stakeholder that you understand their
constraints and that you are committed to only delivering solutions that you believe are consistent
with those constraints.
Deep Knowledge of Your Market and Industry
The fourth critical contribution is deep knowledge of the market and industry in which you’re
competing. This includes not only your competitors but also key trends in technology, customer
behaviours and expectations, following the relevant industry analysts, and understanding the role of
social media for your market and customers.
Another reason to have a deep understanding of the competitive landscape is that your products will
need to fit into a more general ecosystem of other products, and ideally your product is not only
compatible with that ecosystem but adds significant value to it.
Further, your industry is constantly moving, and we must create products for where the market will
be tomorrow, not where it was yesterday.
Smart, Creative, and Persistent
The successful product manager must be the very best versions of smart, creative, and persistent.
By smart, I mean intellectually curious, quickly learning and applying new technologies to solve
problems for customers, to reach new audiences, or to enable new business models.
By creative, I mean thinking outside the normal product box of features to solve business problems.
By persistent, I mean pushing companies way beyond their comfort zone with compelling evidence,
constant communication, and building bridges across functions in the face of stubborn resistance.
Guidelines to follow to become a good PM
• Start by becoming an expert in your users and customers. Share very openly what you learn,
both the good and the bad. Become your team’s and your company’s go-to person for
understanding anything about your customer—quantitative and qualitative.
• Work to establish a strong relationship with your key stakeholders and business partners.
Convince them of two things:
o You understand the constraints they operate under.
o You will only bring to them solutions that you believe will work within those
constraints.
• Become an undisputed expert on your product and your industry. Again, share your
knowledge openly and generously.
• Finally, work very hard to build and nurture the strong collaborative relationship with your
product team.
