Why Product Management- What it is and Why it matters

When Facebook first started in the early 2000s, it pretty much had basic features. It was created to have a user account limited to a particular mailbox, profile and sending of invites to friends. This was considered the main goal for the product users back then, over time and over the years Facebook has evolved to have more features such as the creation of groups, pages, a marketplace, status updates, reels, videos and so on. There is only one explanation for this, Product management.

Different scholars and leaders in the field have defined product management from different angles and views but one thing they all have in common is defining product management as an avenue to finding solutions to users problems. Product management is all about guiding and managing a product from the development stage to the maturity stage and the whole life cycle of the product. It can also be said as the meeting point between customer experience, business and technology.

Product management involves working with various cross-functional teams in an organization to ensure the success of a product in the market and meet both user's and business needs. In a nutshell, product management plays an important role in the development of a product from the standpoint of the business, users and the technological team involved.

At the beginning stage of learning what product management is and who a product manager is, you will get to hear a lot about product lifecycle and as expected the next question that comes to mind is what is a product life cycle? A product lifecycle is a time from when a product is first developed to when it reaches its decline stage in the market. It majorly cuts across development, introduction, growth, maturity and decline.

Importance of Product Management

Product management plays an important role in every organization, here are some key importance of product management;

• Identification of customer needs: Product management helps identify a customer or user's needs by understanding their problems/pain points and how the product will solve these problems.

• Product management bridges the gap across cross-functional teams and helps to serve as the link for effective collaboration to achieve the product's common goal

• Product management plays a key role in gathering market insights on the product through market research, gathering data, identifying opportunities for growth and features in demand by users.

• Product management is the link between business and the product. It serves the purpose of aligning business goals in terms of profit and market share to meet or be on the same page as product development.

• Product management helps create products that meet business and customer needs which translates to revenue generation and a win-win situation for both parties. Business gets profits, Customer needs are met.

Who then is a Product Manager?

A Product Manager brings the concept of product management to life. A product manager is the one responsible for overseeing a product from inception to its entire lifecycle. Product managers ensure the success of a product is achieved or met.

The roles of a Product manager cut across the following;

• Conducting Market Research, user surveys etc.

• Mapping out Product roadmaps, vision and strategy

• Identifying user needs

• Collaborating across cross-functional teams to ensure they understand the goal of the product and that development is aligned with the goal.

• Ensuring both business and customer needs are met

In all, a Product manager lays out the framework for the product in the entire organization.

What are the types of Product managers

The field of product management is wide and broad and in many organizations, there might be a need for more than one product manager and also a need for specialization. This brings us to the type of product managers we have.

For this article, we will be discussing 4 types of product managers, the types are not limited to this.

• Generalist Product Managers: Just like the name implies they cut across all aspects of the product phase in an organization. Their duty starts from product discovery, market research, product delivery and market adoption. Everything that concerns the whole product phase.

• Growth Product Managers: This type of product manager is focused on understanding and penetrating the market. The major goal for this product manager is market acquisition and growing the acceptability rate of the product in the market. They are likely to interface more with the marketing and sales department.

• Technical Product Managers: They are more focused on the technical aspect of a product. The technicality that is expected or needed to complete a product. This kind of product manager likely comes from software developers or has a strong background in software development.

• Domain Knowledge Product Managers: This type of product manager is specifically specialized in a particular industry and has deep knowledge of that industry. Take for example the payment industry or education industry, for you to function effectively as a domain knowledge PM in any of these industries you must be well grounded and have an adequate idea of the needs of users in any of these industries.

In conclusion, the role of product management in developing a product cannot be overlooked. It is significant in meeting business, technology and customer goals.