Sprint #2: Defining a Product Manager’s Role Pt.1
Happy New Year Folks! I hope you all got to take some time off and recharge for the new year, for those of us who were working, I hope you find some time to take a break and rejuvenate.
The Product Management role is most definitely getting more and more popular here in Kenya as most companies, especially startups being intentional about how they innovate, execute, build and release products into the market. Intentional product and release management are all about creating processes and product cadence that set you up for success now and in the future.
Having worked in a product team for the past 3 years, I have observed that there is a mix-up between a Project Manager’s role and a Product Manager’s role. When I first picked up a ‘Product Manager’ role, I was transitioning from Project Management and it was very confusing and hard to differentiate the two roles, even for the company that had hired me. This created misalignment in the way I was to perform my responsibilities and the outcome of the work I was to deliver.
There is a very fine between the two roles as they are similar in some aspects but over time with working the role and studying product management, I am now capable of defining and differentiating both, I can say I have about 80% confidence in differentiating both and performing my product management duties as a product manager and not a project manager.
Once you understand the difference between a Project Manager, there is so much clarity on the approach/process for your delivery and makes a huge difference in the outcome of your work.
As I was job hunting late last year, I took some time to look into a pretty decent number of product manager job descriptions and resumes on the internet just to familiarize myself with what the job market looks like for a product manager currently.
Here are a few things I learned about the role and what recruiters look for in Mid-Level to Senior Product Managers:
Product Visioning and Strategy
Clearly defining a product vision and the strategic direction to achieve the vision is a key element in the product management role. As a product manager, you need to confidently articulate the business case of the features you are looking to build as you include them in your product roadmap, your team needs to understand why you are building these features and how they will add value to your customers.
Depending on the company you work for, you may be required to own the process of defining the vision and strategy while in others, leadership will define the vision and strategy and you will only be required to manage and lead your team in executing them.
Personally, I have experienced both and I recommend for PMs who haven’t had a chance to own this process to start exercising that muscle. There’s no fault in being a PM who is a mastermind at getting behind their leader’s vision and strategy and executing it successfully. There’s definitely an advantage in being able to marry the business case with the product vision and strategic direction to serve your customers and meet their needs.
Managing The Product Roadmap and The Product Backlog
A product roadmap and backlog are very important product management tools. The roadmap strategically defines the high-level plan to meet your vision over time while the product backlog captures tactical details for execution on a task level.
Building your product roadmap requires but is not limited to:
Defining Epics,
Prioritization (find the previously written article here)
Defining timelines for releases,
Defining budgets,
Defining Features and Requirements,
Documenting and Communicating Roadmap to stakeholders,
Defining Risks and Mitigation plans
Reviewing and updating the roadmap
Building out your backlog requires but is not limited to:
Breaking down Epics into user stories,
Further defining requirements for the user stories and breaking them down into more details,
Defining the User Acceptance Criteria (UAT),
Prioritize backlog and stories,
Backlog refinement and keeping it organized,
Assigning Tasks and monitoring development,
Team Management
As a PM, you have to lead a team into executing the product roadmap and guiding them in completing their tasks incrementally into achieving the product vision. In some cases, depending on the role, a PM may be required to lead the end-to-end development of a product from an idea to something tangible and usable working together with researchers, designers, engineers, sales, customer service, marketing, etc. In some cases, a PM may be required to be technical and manage an Engineering team to deliver a tangible product.
Managing your product team requires but is not limited to:
Mentoring and training
Communication
Collaboration
Conflict Management
Unblocking blockers
Reveiwing team progress
Empathy
Conclusion
It’s clear that PMs require a range of experience and skills to effectively deliver a product. This article can definitely act as a checklist for those who are looking to get into product management or grow their skills. There are a lot of excellent resources online that can help you learn more and develop these skills.
In the next article we shall cover the following about the PM role and responsibilities:
Documentation
Risk Management
Using Data to make a decision
Stakeholder Management
Reporting
My vision for Two Week Sprint over the next couple of months is to cover these responsibilities in great detail while sharing my experience and lessons learned. Hopefully, this will provide you with a guide to follow as a PM.
Thanks for reading, see you in Sprint #3