Who is this product manager?

Product management is one of those professions that is difficult to define clearly (refers to any organization), partly because each company does this work differently. Not so long ago, I talked about “who are product managers?” With my friends who are just starting to work in this field, as well as with those who have already achieved some success in this area. Now I want to share this experience with you.

The main responsibility of the product manager is to: Help your team (and company) deliver the product you need to your customers.

If you break this process into smaller components:

1. Help your team

The best product managers spend all their time on the most priority things that help the work of their team.
')
This mainly concerns: (a) coordination - it is necessary to make sure that the team effectively plans, makes decisions and works together with clearly defined goals and objectives; and (b) interaction - the concern that everyone understands what is happening, when and why, especially now, in the face of inevitable changes.

Many people believe that the product manager is the executive director or the one who "writes" the specification; However, I think that such an opinion distorts the influence and authority of the product manager. The best teams create such working conditions under which the team feels its involvement in the project, and where everyone contributes and has the opportunity to voice his suggestions and ideas. The best product managers coordinate key decisions by engaging each team member, they are responsible for identifying differences, eliminating downtime, and finding a common solution (or at least make sure everyone is involved in the process). This does not mean that you need to do what the product manager thinks is right. I don’t want to say that product managers shouldn’t have their own good ideas, but the goal is not to find a team that just does what they’ve been told. Instead, the best product managers build a process based on collaborative decision-making, in which all team members are involved.

From a tactical point of view, helping your team often consists in writing down and summarizing notes after a long meeting, or writing a specification that reflects the actions agreed and planned by the team in writing. Often noticed that writing a good report may take longer than the meeting itself. And, often, working together with people from your vast team means collecting feedback, sharing an action plan, and doing everything so that no obstacles or traps allow the team to turn off the intended path - to deliver the product to the consumer. On Twitter, we called it “the involvement of all groups in the extended team“ ACT SOLID ”

While the engineers write the code, and the designers develop the look and graphics, product managers do not give tangible characteristics to the final product. However, ultimately, I believe that the success of the team and the product depends on the effectiveness of product managers.

2. (and companies)

As a product manager, you need to understand the overall goals and objectives of the company, as well as how your team fits in with the overall vision. The best product managers with whom I had the opportunity to meet or work understood this perfectly - they often turned to the vision of the founder and did everything so that what their team worked on helped them get closer to the realization of this goal. They could clearly articulate how achieving their goals and indicators regarding their product can help the company's overall strategy. And they believed that their team should work for the benefit of the entire company, together with other teams, and not just do what they themselves considered important. One thing I always try to find out from candidates in interviewing a product manager is how often they relate their own vision to the company's overall vision, in particular, the vision of the founder, executive director or vice president of their group. Just as in the case with the help of my team, I do not claim that product managers should not have their own good ideas, but they should be able to implement their ideas in accordance with the main vision and goals of the company, as well as enlist the support higher colleagues.

3. deliver

In fact, nothing is more important than the delivery of products to its customers. You can be a great helper for your team in creating cool things, finding the right product, or realizing a common vision, but all that matters only if, as a result of all this, you help your team put the product on the market. Great product managers are aware of this fine line between developing the right product and putting it on the market. Teams must constantly test, test their products, listen to feedbacks, but in any project there comes a time when the team must declare that the product is ready, sufficiently (although, of course, it will never be 100% ready). Teams with clear goals and objectives, and a good understanding of the consumer, and what he needs, will be able to find the necessary compromises. Usually good product management contributes to this process.

4. required product

Delivery is important, but the best product managers also help the team to make the right product. It is always fun to create something that is not there yet, but it does not always end in success. However, this is precisely the task of the team - to be creative and come up with an original solution that will personify the necessary product and solve the needs of the consumer. Good product managers feel well about what is right and what is not; they also know how to listen to the feedback of testers and those who have tried the product. They perfectly capture the essence of the ideas of the founders and management, and do everything to make the product fit it.

More importantly, as soon as the delivery took place, the best product managers can find out if the delivered product is “the same”. They should work closely with the team in order to make sure that the main characteristics of the product are measurable, and also that it is possible to get answers to difficult questions about whether people actually use the product or not. After the product is delivered, they carefully examine the data and help the team figure out which parts work and which parts don't; then jointly quickly develop a plan for improvement and further testing.

5. to its customers

The most difficult part in the development of any product is the formulation of its main use, that is, a description of who will use the product and why. The best product managers act as advocates for their consumers and represent them at almost every meeting where product decisions are made.

This requires a deep understanding of your target audience: what are their difficulties and problems; and how your product will bring them value and satisfy their needs. Good product managers constantly listen to the feedback of consumers, whether it is a test of usability, a meeting with consumers in the field, reading technical support letters or tweets, or working with people from your company who do this daily. But the very best absorb all this invaluable information and transform it into a product vision, which helps the team to be confident that it makes a truly necessary product.

The absolute truth is that there is no such product that would satisfy everyone; It is a continuous process of continuous product development and improvement. The best product managers are those who, rolling up their sleeves, help their team make this journey.

Who shares the basic principles set forth in this article - write in a personal. We need such people in the team Yandex. Browser.

The translation was made as part of the Tolstoy Summer Camp start-up summer school and the MetaBeta project.