In the current times, I see open positions in the Indian IT industry with the role “Product Manager”. However, a quick glance at the job description will tell you that these companies are either looking to hire a Project Manager or Technical Architect or even a Marketing person. Though I understand that the role has become somewhat of a buzz word in the management circles, we must understand that the role itself is an old one. To understand the role of a Product Manager, we must first understand the meaning of the word product
What is a product
A product is can be anything from your keyboard, laptop, your internet browser, or software applications or Amazon, Facebook etc. Some products are so large that they need to be broken down into manageable chunk- take a, for example, Amazon — one product could be the payments, the other the vendor access, another product could be the recommendation engine.
And as long as you have a product — you need a product manager.
Roles and Responsibilities of a Product Manager
A Product Manager’s job in layman’s terms is to manage the product. Product manager’s job changes from company to company as the requirements in each company differ.
As a product manager, you are actually not anyone’s boss. Since you need to collaborate with many stakeholders like the engineering team, design team, marketing team and so on… Let’s say if any one of these teams reported to you, would they be open to going against your idea?
You need to act as a communications centre, an ideas organizer, enabler of action, strategic thinker, and direction provider to the team.
Types of PM in the software world
- Internal Product Manager- They are responsible for building the tools which will be used within the company and their various other teams. The stakeholders for this kind of product will be the employees and the leaders of the company. For example — a timesheet tool or any tool which can be used across the board.
- Consumer Product Managers (Business to consumer )- The Consumer Product manager is responsible for products which are used by individual users. The product will be available to the public and Ideas will be generated from the metrics and user feedback. Example — Instagram, Facebook etc.
- Business to Business Product Manager (SaaS PM’s) — The product managers will be responsible for building B2B products which solve the problems of businesses. The product will be sold to other companies, and the clients who pay for the product will be the stakeholders. Clients and users may be different in this type. Example for these would be Oracle, SalesForce.
The role of a Product Manager is not to manage the team or the technical aspects of a product, but to manage and grow the product. The Product Manager needs to leverage the knowledge of business and customers to better prioritize what features make it into the product and help the team understand why they’re building those features.
“A great product manager has the brain of an engineer, the heart of a designer, and the speech of a diplomat.”
– Deep Nishar, Vice President of Product at LinkedIn
