A cook cooks, a cleaner cleans, a driver drives — but what does a product manager do?
The easy answer is they manage products, but what does this actually mean? How exactly do you manage products?
Read on to find out more about the role of product managers, their responsibilities, and skills and tools they need to excel in their job.
Also, learn what you should do if you want to become a product manager, and check out the best practices that can help you be a cut above the rest.
Let’s get started.
- Product managers set a product vision and define a product’s roadmap while taking into account both user and business needs.
- Product managers’ list of responsibilities largely depends on the product, the team, and the company they work for.
- Product managers need a skill set of both hard and soft skills to be able to manage a product and people they work with.
- The range of companies that hire product managers is high, and depending on what they actually work on, we can speak of different types of product managers.
- Product managers make use of several tools in their work such as industry analysis, roadmapping, communication, project and task management, etc.
- Some of the best practices for product managers are: understand the market and the customer, practice the art of prioritization, influence with authority, and grow a thick skin.
- To become a product manager, there are several steps you should take like get a degree in any of related fields, get a certificate, connect with industry experts, and read relevant literature.
What is a product manager?
A product manager is the person who sets the product vision, defines a product’s roadmap and features, and determines the success criteria of a product while balancing user needs with business goals.
In general, product managers identify solutions that respond to market trends and guide the team members of the cross-functional teams (engineers, designers, marketeers, sales, etc.) throughout the product development process. Also, they regularly communicate with stakeholders to ensure alignment and secure buy-in.
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Want to find out more about cross-functional collaboration and how to implement it in your organization? Check out the article below:
Key product manager responsibilities
Even though you might expect an alphabetical list of product managers’ responsibilities, you’ll be disappointed to find out there’s no standardized list of their job duties.
Their scope of work largely depends on the company they work for, the team, and product type.
Still, here are some major responsibilities product managers usually take on:
- Understanding customer needs through market research and customer feedback,
- Identifying market opportunities, developing competitive analysis, and shaping product strategy,
- Creating a product roadmap that outlines the steps for product development,
- Defining and prioritizing features and functionalities that need to be developed,
- Gathering cross-functional teams around the same goal and clearly communicating the roadmap,
- Overseeing the product development process and making adjustments when necessary,
- Cooperating with the quality assurance team to ensure the product meets quality and safety standards,
- Developing product positioning strategies and working on product launch with relevant teams,
- Monitoring performance and measuring it against key metrics,
- Optimizing the product and making improvements based on post-launch performance results, and
- Making sure product development stays within the allocated time and budget.
Define a product roadmap in Plaky
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In case you confuse the role of a product manager with that of a project manager, have a look at the article below to learn the key differences between the two:
Top of the list product manager skills
Product management is not for everyone — you need an extensive skill set to stay on top of your job (and nerves of steel to handle a huge to-do list).
So, if you want to excel as a product manager, you have to bring a mix of different hard and soft skills to the table. Here are some of the hard skills an aspiring product manager should have:
- Market research — Communicate with users through surveys and interviews to collect their feedback and test product viability.
- Conversion rate optimization — Analyze user behavior and identify where users struggle to improve conversion rates.
- A/B testing — Test what your users love more to optimize user experience.
- Data analysis — Use relevant data to understand user behavior and diagnose problems.
- UX design — Ensure higher user satisfaction by making a product that is user-friendly.
- Project management — Apply project management knowledge to easily handle timelines, resources, and risks.
- Financial acumen — Understand cost structures, and make informed decisions to align product strategies and expenses with company financial goals.
- Agile product development — Develop a product in small steps to ensure constant improvement and alignment with user needs.
As for the soft skills needed to set yourself up for success as a product manager, make sure you develop the following:
- Communication skills — Convey the product vision to different teams, partners, and stakeholders effectively. Make requirements clear and improve verbal and written skills to ensure everyone understands what they should do.
- Strategic thinking — Align the product vision with long-term business goals and prioritize features and initiatives accordingly.
- Leadership skills — Encourage your team to take part in the decision-making process, listen to their concerns, and make them feel valued.
- User empathy — Understand the needs, feelings, and problems of your customers/users, and develop products that are user-centred.
- Conflict resolution skills — Be diplomatic and ready to navigate different opinions, disagreements, and constraints while ensuring alignment with the product vision.
- Adaptability — Adjust to changing market trends, moving technologies, unexpected challenges (competitors launch new features), and modify strategies to stay competitive.
Set products for success with Plaky
Types of product managers and their work environments
You can find a product manager in pretty much any company that makes products. And, while a product manager’s title may vary depending on their scope of work, these professionals work across a wide range of companies, including:
- Technology companies,
- Financial service companies,
- Healthcare,
- Consumer goods companies,
- E-commerce,
- Media, and more.
The reality is that a product manager isn’t always responsible for managing the entire product — they sometimes manage features only, and that’s where we can speak of different types of product managers. Here are some of them:
- Technical Product Manager,
- Data Product Manager,
- Growth Product Manager,
- AI Product Manager,
- UX Product Manager,
- API Product Manager,
- Consumer Product Manager, and so on.
Try Plaky for any product roadmap
What tools do product managers use to do their job?
If you want to stay ahead in the fast product development world, you’ll have to rely on several different tools to carry out your tasks and responsibilities. Such tools help you improve collaboration, streamline workflows, assess the market, and much more.
Here’s a quick summary of the tools you’ll use throughout the product lifecycle.
Industry analysis tools
As a product manager, you need to know what users/customers want and what bothers them. A detailed industry analysis will give you a sense of customer behavior, market structures, and economic conditions.
Having such insights, you’ll get the idea of what kind of product people want and which features you should prioritize. Also, it will secure competitive advantage and guide future decisions.
Roadmapping tools
One of your most important tasks is to create a visual roadmap that you can easily share with internal teams and stakeholders so that everyone is in sync with the product strategy.
Make sure you choose roadmap software that allows you to build a visual roadmap with clear goals, milestones, and a detailed timeline. Roadmapping tools help you to manage product development smoothly as you can follow updates and track progress over time.
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Roadmaps outline your product vision, and you can create them in several different ways. Check out some practical examples of product roadmaps in the article below:
Project and task management tools
Having task management software as your virtual teammate helps you keep track of tasks, their statuses, and due dates. With this type of software, you can:
- Streamline processes,
- Allocate resources,
- Monitor progress,
- Spot bottlenecks,
- Set timelines, and much more.
The best thing about project management tools is that they help you collaborate with your team and store relevant information in one centralized place.
What’s more, a great number of such tools can automate your workflows and save the time you’d otherwise spend on manual adjustments and repetitive tasks.
Team communication tools
Product managers recognize the power of open and regular communication. That’s why you’ll see them use various business communication apps to unite their teammates who usually work across multiple departments and locations.
Communication tools typically allow you to send messages and files, run virtual meetings, and easily organize work conversations. Also, they keep message history, and notify you in real-time about upcoming meetings and new comments, so you never miss a thing.
User analysis tools
Product managers’ main focus is to understand users’ needs and how they interact with a particular product.
To get to know their users better, product managers rely on specialized tools that help them gain an insight into how users use a product, what features they like most, and what features they’d like to see added in the future. Such tools typically allow you to create surveys and ask questions about user experience.
Also, there are tools that help product managers analyze users’ behavior in depth and see where they click, what they like to scroll, and even where they drop off in a funnel.
Design tools
Product development involves cooperation of many different teams including the design team.
To explain your vision to the design team, you’ll need to have some basic knowledge of one or two design tools so that you can translate your ideas into wireframes or prototypes. Once you “show” designers what kind of product or feature users want, you’ll be able to discuss options and align choices with business objectives.
Best practices that make a great product manager
If you’ve just started out on your product management career, you should know that there’s no one proper way to do the job.
Your responsibilities will mostly depend on your company, but no matter whether you work for an enterprise, a start-up, or a small business, the following practices can help you make the grade.
Understand the market and the customer
As a product manager, you’ll have to dig deep and do a lot of research to find that specific gap that your product can fill. But “research” is not only about survey forms, heatmaps, or usability tests. To understand the market and what your customers really want, you need to listen and observe.
Always be informed on what sells well in your niche and what products are in low demand. Try to join the sales calls, do support call reviews, talk to your customers, and get to know their behavior patterns and pain points. This way you can bring some unmet needs to light and create a product that beats the competition.
Practice the art of prioritization
Effective prioritization is key in product management, meaning your focus should be on:
- High-impact features,
- Optimal resource allocation, and
- High-value delivery.
If you’re a novice in product management, take your time to define a product vision, and align it with business objectives. Have these in your mind when you make decisions, and learn to say “no” to features that bring no actual value.
Influence without authority
Product managers bring together people from different teams, but the tricky part is they don’t manage them directly. Still, as a product manager, you’re expected to be the honcho and navigate the product route.
So, to align everyone to your product vision, make sure you:
- Communicate clearly and adapt your language to your teammates (techies, designers, etc.),
- Listen to your teammates and let them challenge some decisions,
- Use storytelling to explain the product vision and share the “why” behind that vision, and
- Take time to build relationships with your teammates.
Trust and mutual understanding are vital for having power without authority.
Grow a thick skin
Some decisions you make may not turn out the way you expected, which will certainly leave your stakeholders, partners, and even teammates unhappy.
Negative feedback and failed launches may shake your self-confidence — but this is something you should prepare yourself for.
As long as you learn from your mistakes and can explain what happened and why, you’re on a good way. Sometimes, you’ll have to take the hits for your teammates, but it’s important to come to terms with failures together with your teammates and get the product back on track.
How to become a product manager
Product managers usually come from different professional backgrounds, and you’ll often hear they made it to product management from an adjacent role. For example, some products require a UX product manager, so a UX designer would be a good match for this role (as long as they have other necessary skills for the job).
However, if you start a product manager career from scratch, here’s what you should do:
- Get a bachelor’s degree — As you’ll need to work with people from fields like marketing, design, engineering, or finance, make sure you have some specialized knowledge that will ease your future cooperation with different teammates.
- Earn a certificate — Although it’s not a must, completing a course designed to teach you the essential skills necessary for a product manager job is highly recommended. You’ll be able to build a portfolio of projects you can later use when you apply for work.
- Read relevant literature — To improve your chances of finding a job in product management, consider reading books and articles that can help you understand the field better and provide new insights into what the job requires.
- Get hands-on experience — The thing that employers value the most is experience, so try to find volunteer projects you can work on.
- Connect with industry professionals — The number of benefits you can have from networking is huge. Follow successful product managers on social media and visit networking events to meet people who you can ask for advice or mentorship. Who knows, maybe they can offer you a job one day!
- Get ready for job applications — Before you send any application, make sure you tailor your resumé, polish your LinkedIn profile, and organize your portfolio.
3 ways Plaky by CAKE.com helps product managers maximize outcomes
Product managers have a lot on their plates, which is why they need a flexible and reliable tool to simplify their day-to-day work.
And, that’s exactly where Plaky by CAKE.com can save the day! Here are the 3 ways Plaky helps you improve your product management.
#1 You have no limits on the essentials
With Plaky, there are no limits in terms of the number of users, boards, tasks, and spaces you can create — no matter the pricing plan you opt for. Plus, each plan offers more than enough storage space per file allowing you to keep important documents within relevant boards.
#2 You don’t have to start from scratch every time
What’s great about Plaky is that it’s versatile enough to support any and all types of product management.
Still, if you don’t want to or have no time to play with all the customization options, you can simply go to Plaky’s template center and choose between the 2 ready-made templates built with product management in mind:
- Product roadmap template — Use it to unite your team around your plan, break the roadmap into manageable steps, keep an eye on releases, and more.
- Product launch template — Coordinate all your activities, prioritize, and receive notifications about updates and due-dates so that the product launch can go off smoothly.
#3 You can automate processes and save time
With Plaky, you can enjoy smart task handling and automate repetitive tasks in only 3 steps. By using a simple trigger “When this happens, then do that”, you can rely on Plaky to:
- Handle status changes,
- Move items,
- Update fields,
- Notify your teammates, and more.
What’s more, you can easily set up an automation for recurring tasks with flexible patterns and fit everything to your workflow.
As you can see, Plaky saves you time for focused work by handling tedious tasks for you.
FAQ about product managers
Now, let’s check out some interesting questions about product managers we haven’t covered so far.
Is the product manager really the CEO of the product?
No, not in the sense one would expect. Product managers do have a high responsibility level just like any CEO, but, unlike CEOs, they are only responsible for the product and not for the whole company.
On the other hand, CEOs have authority, which is something product managers don’t have. Product managers’ only power is the influence they have on the people they cooperate and should come to an agreement with.
Who should be a product manager?
If you want to be a product manager, you have to:
- Be ready for work under tension,
- Know how to approach different people (designers, engineers, C-suite) to get their approval,
- Keep pace with the market, competitors, and customers’ needs,
- Be well-organized and meticulous,
- Be well-informed and base decisions on evidence rather than personal or C-suite preferences,
- Accept that you will never be a boss to people you work with on a product, and
- Be prepared mentally to launch a product or a feature that is not as perfect as you would want them to be.
All in all, being a successful product manager is less about specific certificates and more about personality.
Is product management a high-paying career?
The answer to this question largely depends on the experience of a product manager, industry, location, and the company they work for. Some companies even offer benefits like bonuses, paid health insurance, stock options, and more to their employees. You can check resources like Glassdoor, Zippia, or LinkedIn for up-to-date salary data.
Level up your product management with Plaky by CAKE.com
In the product management world, effective organization is a must. This means you first need a tool that can keep all your project plans, tasks, and documentation in one safe location.
But, don’t worry, you can relax and rely on Plaky by CAKE.com to keep all your information in one place.
As a centralized hub, Plaky lets you store all files, documents, and links within the task card making them easily accessible to you and your teammates.
What’s more, in Plaky, you can allocate resources, set deadlines, and scale product operations without losing track of any important detail.
But, hold on, even though we already mentioned the 3 ways Plaky helps you drive product processes, there’s more to take into account. You’ll be glad to know that Plaky also offers:
- Multiple board views — See your product roadmap from different perspectives thanks to Table, Kanban, and Gantt chart views.
- My tasks — View all your tasks on a single page, organize your day easily, and manage priorities. On paid plans, you can also view another user’s tasks.
- Real-time notifications — Stay in the know with real-time updates on your Plaky boards and get notified whenever someone @mentions you within a task card.
- Time tracking — Measure the time spent on tasks and spot behavior patterns that might cause problems thanks to Plaky + Clockify integration.
- Progress tracking — Add Status custom Field to your boards to track the stages your tasks are in and manage task priority. Also, use conditional coloring to highlight tasks with approaching deadlines to track them more effectively.
Easily streamline your product workflow with Plaky by CAKE.com! Sign up for a free trial today!
