Who is a Product Manager?

A product manager analyzes the consumer’s demands in line with the company’s objectives to create a product or feature that fits. They articulate what success looks like for a product, and rally a team to make that vision a reality. The product manager’s job is to find a valuable, useable, and feasible product.

Product management is an intersection between business, technology, and user experience. It is primarily a business function, with the goal of maximizing the business value of a product focused on optimizing the said product to meet business objectives while maximizing ROI. Although a Product Manager must be able to code, an awareness of the technology involved and, more critically, the level of effort required is critical to make the best decisions, for example, an agile education, since Product Managers spend more time with the development team on a daily basis than with anybody else in the company.

They are also the business’s voice for the user, and they must be enthusiastic about the user experience. They must be out there testing the product, speaking with people, and receiving direct feedback. They start with creating a product vision, which necessitates researching the market, the consumer, and the problem they’re trying to address for them. They integrate a massive quantity of data – client feedback, quantitative data from analytics, research papers, market trends, and statistics so education in Microsoft Excel would come in handy.

As a Product Manager, you’ll be working with the development team on a daily basis, communicating the vision, defining and iterating the product as you go, fixing problems as they arise, and closely controlling scope to ensure the product is delivered on time and after the product is out there, the Product Manager is back to combing over data, this time looking at how customers use it, getting out and talking to them about it, and overall living, breathing, and eating the product to make sure you solved the proper problem, your customers understand what you’re selling, helping them with their problem and are willing to pay for the product.  This is not a linear process; rather than doing tasks one at a time, you’re doing it for a dozen products or features at once, going from concept to operations in a short amount of time.

Does it seem to be challenging? Sure, it’s a serious job, but it’s also about the most fun you can have while certainly being paid handsomely. It’s also rewarding as you get to define a product’s essence, devise solutions to your consumers’ concerns, collaborate with everyone in the company, and play a critical role in its success. They are the heroes of the tech world.

In summary, Product Management is about deciding amongst a plethora of options for delivering value to the end-user while also satisfying organizational goals.

Responsibilities of a Product Manager

A product manager analyzes the consumer demand and bigger company objectives that a product or feature will meet, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to make that vision a reality.

Specific roles differ based on the organization’s size. Product managers, for example, in larger organizations, are part of a team with researchers, analysts, and marketers who aid in the gathering of information, while developers and designers oversee day-to-day operations, drawing up designs, testing prototypes, and identifying flaws. These product managers have greater support, but they also spend time bringing all of the stakeholders together around the same goal.

Product managers in smaller businesses, on the other hand, spend less time persuading everyone to agree and more time doing the hands-on labor that comes with developing and carrying out a vision.

To highlight some of the general responsibilities, Product Managers are in charge of:

• Recognizing and representing the demands of users.
• Keeping an eye on the market and conducting competitive studies.
• Defining a product’s vision.
• Getting all of the stakeholders on board with the product’s vision.
• Prioritizing product capabilities and features.
• Developing a shared brain among larger groups to enable independent decision-making.
• Collaboration with external parties. Aids in the formulation of the product’s vision.
• Defines what success entails.
• Vision, marketing, and return on investment.
• At a conceptual level, the product manager may end up prioritizing tasks for the development team and playing a larger role in ensuring that everyone is on the same page.

Educational Requirements

One of the most significant jobs in the field of products and services is that of product manager.  Typically, employers prefer PMs with a solid education and a well-defined career path. However, some businesses are becoming more lenient in their recruiting practices these days. Without going through college programs, one can move their existing employees to product management. That isn’t to say that the education requirements for general product managers haven’t changed throughout time. It’s just that businesses recognize that you don’t need a product management degree to work as a product manager.

A product manager, on average, requires a Bachelor’s degree in product management, business, or a similar discipline. You’re good to go as long as your degree contains business management, product management, public relations, marketing, communications, advertising, basic economics, and mathematics. A bachelor’s degree in product management, business, economics, or a similar discipline is essential. A Bachelor’s degree in computer science can also work whether you’re a SaaS product manager, AI product manager, or any other product management role in tech. A bachelor’s degree in business or a similar subject is also useful to apply for any product management role.

Degrees in communications, marketing, economics, public relations, statistics, advertising, and management are also included for product managers. Product managers who work for companies with broader product lines may be required to have advanced degrees. If he handles products for those industries, a product manager’s background may be in said field of study.

A master’s degree in one of the above-mentioned subjects is also useful. Master’s degrees, on the other hand, are more about specialty, therefore you should only pursue them after you’ve gained sufficient experience. That’s because once you’ve gained some experience, you’ll be able to see what you’re good at, and you’ll be able to see what you need to specialize in. Obtaining product management certifications will help you establish qualifications and credibility. 

Skills

Hard skills

Product management is an organizational role that directs every step of a product’s lifetime, from development to positioning and price, by focusing first and foremost on the product and its users. Product managers advocate for customers within the organization and ensure that the market’s voice is heard and heeded in order to develop the greatest possible product.

Product teams consistently ship better-designed and higher-performing products as a result of this customer-centric emphasis. In the tech industry, where entrenched goods are quickly uprooted by newer and better ideas, a deep understanding of customers and the capacity to design customized solutions for them is more important than ever.

Data Interpretation and Documentation

Product Managers should be able to understand and hopefully pull the data they need to undertake analyses. Basic data analysis in the workplace necessitates the use of SQL and Excel. After all, if you don’t comprehend the data, you’ll have a hard time figuring out what kind of commercial value your product is supposed to generate.

Set harsh priorities

The job necessitates the practitioner’s best use of resources in order to achieve a broader purpose, despite the fact that they will never be able to meet everyone’s demands. At any given time, a product manager may have to choose between a feature that may please one large customer but displease 100 smaller customers; maintaining a product’s status quo or steering it in a new direction to expand its reach and align with larger business goals; or focusing on the flashy or the dull and vital. The product manager can make the best decision by clearly knowing the costs and benefits of each option.

Get a clear sense of where you’re going

Product managers must have a deeper understanding of the landscape than anyone else. Product managers are sometimes thrown into something that has already gained traction. They’ll make poor decisions if they start executing without first getting their bearings. Good product managers slam on the brakes and begin by inquiring. If you’re new to product management, spend the first several months talking to as many customers and internal stakeholders as possible. Recognize the business model, the past, how various people are influenced, and the process through which decisions are made. Only then will you be able to make your own decisions.

Allow your staff to make decisions on their own

One of the cornerstones to excellent product management is empowering your team to make their own judgments by establishing a shared brain—or a system for making decisions and escalating them based on a set of criteria. When someone asks a product manager a question about a decision they could have made themselves, it’s almost always because they don’t have enough context to make the decision. That context is created by great product managers.

Learn how to exert influence without being in a position of authority

Influence comes in a variety of formats and forms. The first step is to pay attention and figure out how everyone is affected. Then figure out how to persuade them to agree with your viewpoint. Even if you don’t have any statistics to back up your claim, becoming a great storyteller will get you a long way. The secret to leading without direct authority is to know which levers to pull with particular people.

Build a thick skin

People will always be unhappy when they have to forgo one option for the other. The key is to make a well-reasoned choice, and then be ready to explain why you made your choice. Some people may not like your decision even if you explain it, but they will usually respect how you arrived at it. Even if they don’t, great product managers find a way to work around it. Some of the tactical day-to-day responsibilities that a product manager must carry out are listed below.

Meetings

A Product Manager will be able to moderate discussions and ensure that no one digs too deep into the specifics of any given assignment. The purpose isn’t to address any blockages during stand-up meetings, but rather to assist in notifying the appropriate team members so that they can work on difficulties outside of the meeting.

Interacting with Customers

They spend time with consumers, whether in person or through other media such as customer service issues, phone calls, or video conferences, to realize whether what their team is developing is valuable. Spending time with clients will also aid in the development of future features.

Managing the Product Backlog

They are in charge of managing the product feature backlog and ensuring that the team doesn’t waste time between feature development iterations. They decide which features the team will focus on incoming endeavors.

Develop a strategic plan

Product managers are responsible for deciding not only the product’s immediate next work items, but also its long-term strategy and vision. It’s vital they keep up with developments in the industry and in the competitive landscape, as well as to have an opinion on what the future will look like.

They’re liable not just for the product’s current performance, but also for its future performance down the line. The product management personnel present to their colleagues the vision for where you want to take your product, and also expected to make the vision mesh nicely with the own product goals.

Soft Skills

Communication and empathy

Because your job is fundamentally focused on filling the white space, empathy and communication are essential. You won’t know what area is most important to fill unless you know everything there is to know about the client, the company, and the development team. Furthermore, you must act as a mediator for all three groups, which emphasizes the need for communication. You must have both empathy and communication at the same time; one without the other will not go you very far. If you’re sympathetic but unable to communicate, you won’t be able to convey context among the three groups, resulting in a breach of credibility. If you’re communicative but lack empathy, you’ll lose trust because your message won’t be tailored to the needs of each group.

Tenacity and Teachability

Because product management is intrinsically an unlimited space, grit and speed of learning are required. You’ll need grit because you’ll be faced with difficult decisions on a daily basis, as well as conflict from all three groups. Even when circumstances are rough, you must be convicted in your mission and passion, and you must be the spiritual cheerleader and advocate for all three groups.

Because clients, businesses, and development teams are constantly changing, you must be able to learn rapidly. New industry trends, competitors, technologies, and even new personnel could all have a significant impact on how you operate. You must have both fortitude and learning speed at the same time; one without the other is essentially meaningless. If you merely have grit but not learning speed, you’ll be too stubborn and won’t be able to change your mind quickly enough when evidence mounts against you. And if you merely have the speed of learning without fortitude, you’ll burn out too quickly and won’t last long.

Prioritization

Because product management is continuous, ruthless prioritizing is required. Every day, you have thousands of decisions to make since product managers are all about making decisions. You’ll drown in analysis paralysis or be too overburdened with inbound work if you can’t rapidly identify the essential aspects that will make or break your firm. You must be able to recognize when to decline work and when to delegate work; you cannot handle everything alone, therefore prioritizing your tasks is essential.

They must also have strong analytical talents and exceptional time management abilities.  Because product managers’ jobs often involve barriers and challenges, they must be able to deal with stress. Product managers must possess sound commercial judgment, marketing expertise, and the ability to manage intricate logistics. Aspiring product managers can expect to be involved in choices about the products’ “when,” “what,” and “how” in general. As a result, certain PMs can be called the product’s CEO. This necessitates a broad range of knowledge, including some technical expertise and a firm grasp of product leadership.

So Where Can You Start?

Whatever path you follow to become a product manager, developing your skills and awareness of product management responsibilities and how to do them is an important part of the process. To become a product manager, follow these steps:

Select a career path

To become a product manager, you can choose to get an MBA program in product management to help you improve your professional skills. Aspiring product managers typically attend a school to gain business experience, so they possess some of the necessary abilities in the field. In some situations, an enthusiast may learn on the job and be placed in a junior product management position, learning from more experienced product managers.

Product managers learn on the job and build the abilities they need to advance in the field of product management in this ideal scenario. Building a case study, performing market planning, proposing a business strategy, and performing competitive analysis are all abilities that may be learned on the job.

Understand the fundamentals

People in product management should demonstrate a willingness to learn as the industry advances. One method is to read as much as possible on product management philosophy. Product managers can benefit from a variety of papers, books, and newsletters, so commit to learning and finding the greatest sources of current product management information before attempting to enter the industry.

Prioritization is the name of the game for a product manager. Because product managers serve as liaisons between individuals and groups, they receive a slew of requests that must be prioritized and fulfilled in order to support things like feature development, testing, and other activities. Product managers must be proficient at handling several components of the development cycle when there are several action items going on at the same time.

It’s also critical for product managers to improve their listening abilities. Actively listening to the demands of the person or group and determining how that translates into functional features is a part of taking requests from various project stakeholders. As a result, anyone entering the profession of product management would benefit from having some fundamental user experience (UX) abilities. End-user needs are listened to and translated into designs and wireframes by UX designers.

The necessity to comprehend programming fundamentals punctuates all of this essential information. Learning a popular coding language can help you get ahead of the pack. It’s critical to commit to learning and expanding your skills in several key areas if you want to become a product manager.

Consult with people in the sector for advice.

Surveying people who work in the sector is one approach to learn more about it. Find people who work as product managers through your contacts or social networks, then call out and ask if you could set up a brief career development interview with them.

Enroll in leadership training.

Taking a leadership course is an easy method to strengthen your resume while looking for product management employment. Leadership training is available in a variety of formats.

Look for leadership training courses online, go to a local institution or university, or ask around your network. Local chambers of commerce and professional organizations are likely to provide a plethora of leadership opportunities.

Prepare your resume as well as your elevator pitch.

You can start preparing yourself on paper once you’ve completed your product management education and skill development.

Consider the talents and courses you should include in your new product management resume. Create a compelling goal that explains why you should be employed as a product manager. The most effective objective statements are those that are specifically suited to the job or company which you are pursuing.

Even if you haven’t worked as a product manager for a long time, you may generalize and emphasize many talents that can be applied to other fields such as marketing or project management. Describe how you collaborated with product managers to achieve a goal and what role you performed

Conduct an interview.

You’re ready to start interviewing once you’ve improved your skills and updated your CV and objective statement. Apply for product management positions with firms where you want to work. To keep motivated, set a daily application target for yourself. When you get an interview, do your homework on the company, read the job description, and practice answering basic and product manager-specific questions. Curiosity and a desire to learn are good qualities in a potential product manager. So, how can you end up making yourself stand out and attractive in the field? Keep creating your own things!

To manage products, you don’t need anyone’s permission. After all, the scope of Product Management is still vague and undefined and thus a single definition of what a product manager should perform is still growing. In the same vein, product managers don’t specifically have credentials or doctorates. Nonetheless, there is at least one clear unanimity among the various descriptions of the role. To bring a product to life, a good product manager will play with the resources they’ve been given. They discover a way around difficult limits.

You can code in whatever way you choose.

It’s a debate whether a product manager should be able to code. It is, however, a great advantage to have and there are an ever-increasing number of opportunities to learn. The first step is to create something and have someone use it. That is what a product is all about! Make a difference for someone with your idea and product and then learn from it.

Failure is unavoidable.

It’s a truth of life that product managers frequently fail. However, you must understand how to use failure to their advantage; and accept risk over time in order to gain a better understanding of their product. When confronted with uncertainty, go deeper rather than retreat. It’s perfectly fine if your product fails. Product Managers are willing to fail and take responsibility for their mistakes. You must become comfortable with taking risks if you want to be a product manager. So there’s no reason not to get out there and produce something!

Famous People to Follow

Lulu Cheng, Product Manager, Pinterest

She has previously worked for Microsoft and Dropbox as a Product Marketer. Her name was highlighted in the Product Management Festival’s ’52 Women Making an Impact in Product Management.’

You may find and follow her on LinkedIn

Alicia Dixon, Hilton Worldwide’s Senior Product Manager

She’s another well-known product manager to keep an eye on. “Product is all about constant learning,” she is known for saying. She is a true expert in the creation and administration of mobile products.  Alicia, who is now the Product Manager at Hilton Worldwide, is one of the most successful product managers to follow in 2021 if you’re seeking true career inspiration.

Her LinkedIn profile is here.

Julie Zhuo – Inspirit

Julie is the former Vice President of Product Design at Facebook, and author of the best-selling ‘The Making of a Manager. Julie Zhuo worked for Facebook for 14 years, 11 of them as a product design and management manager. As a specialist in the fields of design and product management, she is one of the most influential people when it comes to how we view UX-centric products. She currently runs her own business, Inspirit. 

Her LinkedIn profile can be found here.

Gibson Biddle — Speaker, Teacher, and Former Netflix Product Manager

He began his product management career in the 1990s when there was little understanding of the term. Biddle worked for Mattel and Sega before being hired as a product manager at Netflix as a consequence of his great performance. Netflix membership increased from 2,5 million to 12,8 million during his tenure as PM. He now works as a lecturer, inspiring people who desire to advance their careers in product management.

Check him out on LinkedIn.

Ope Adeoye 

Ope Adeoye graduated from the University of Ilorin with a degree in engineering and has over 17 years of experience in the technology industry, including 10 years in product management. He has worked in both the financial technology and telecommunications industries and has handled the installation of fundamental products on a large scale. He is currently the ‘Chief Hustler’ at One-Pipe Services Limited, a company that provides standard API schema and protocols for exchange, packaging everything into one API gateway for banks to sell to their many customers.

Find him on LinkedIn.

Desiree Craig

Desiree is a product owner with a unique set of skills. Her foray into technology began in 2011, with Product Management accounting for a significant portion of her time. She is extensive and flexible, having created products in a variety of industries and countries. She graduated from Warwick University with a bachelor’s degree in computing and a passion for education.

She is currently Vice President, Product, and Technology at uLesson Limited, a pioneering company that has created an App that hosts thousands of educational video tutorials that combine quality lessons delivered by education experts with digital animation and illustration to explain key – and often complex – concepts. The organization offers students a learning experience that is unrivaled in terms of its depth, breadth, engagement, and effectiveness.

Follow her on LinkedIn

Otokiti Oluwatobi

Oluwatobi is quickly becoming the face of product management in Nigeria, not just via her work, but also through her Product Dive Initiative, which trains and provides opportunities for other young Product Managers in the Tech industry in Nigeria, and Africa. Her career spans several firms and roles, from FinTech to EduTech, as a Master’s graduate of Computer Science from the University of Ibadan. She is currently employed as a Senior Growth Product Manager at Flutterwave, a leading African financial technology firm. She formerly worked as a Product Manager at Andela, a firm that seeks out and develops technical talent, allowing them to work for world-class firms.

Follow her on LinkedIn

Babatunde Ogidan

Babatunde has extensive experience as a product manager. He has a penchant for creating financial products that significantly improve people’s lives, particularly in emerging economies. His career began as a software engineer in one of Nigeria’s top financial institutions, but he swiftly advanced to the position of Product Manager, which he has held in many organizations since then. He majored in Food Engineering at Obafemi Awolowo University and holds a number of Product and Agile software development process certifications.

He is currently the Product Manager and Vice-President of Digital Banking at TeamApt, having previously held the same role on the Moniepoint Team. TeamApt is a financial technology startup focusing on reimagining the demands of consumers, businesses, and the financial industry in order to produce Digital Banking, Digital Business solutions, and Payments Infrastructure.

Follow him on LinkedIn.

Salary Comparison

A product manager’s average compensation according to Indeed Salaries, is $103,074 per year. They are also compensated with an annual bonus of $8,000 on average. As direct employees of a company, product managers work in an office setting and often work a full-time workweek. As of 2020, the average income for Product managers was $99,577 a year, plus $8,000 in annual cash bonuses, according to the job website Indeed. Qualified and experienced professionals may earn much higher than new recruits or employees of small businesses or firms.

Let’s see some examples from across the world. We have R$194,000 in Sao Paulo, $87,000 in Singapore, A$110,000 in Sydney, R682,000 in South Africa, $129,387 in USA,£55,357 in London, and €69,098 in Frankfurt.

Conclusion

In order to build a product that is relevant, practicable, and valuable, a product manager links corporate strategy, design knowledge, and the customer wants. They are responsible for optimizing a product to meet business objectives and user requirements while maximizing the ROI.

Product managers, set the goals, define success, encourage people, and are accountable for the results. Consider the product manager to be connective tissue: they handle everything and are considered the “CEO of The Product”. Earn relevant skills with 1010 Coding and charter your course to be one of the best Product Managers in the world.