Purpose of Product Management?
What is the purpose of Product Management? Why does an organization need a product manager? I believe Product Management is all about executing strategy. Each product should have a strategy that is aligned to corporate strategy. Depending on what level you are at in the organization, you may be responsible for defining product strategy for individual products or for a product portfolio. For a lot of Product Managers the product strategy is already defined and they are responsible for executing on that strategy. So when people ask what is product management or what are PMs responsible for, I have to come back to executing the product strategy.
Everything we do as Product Managers should by tied to product strategy. We do win/loss analysis to verify our competitive strategy is working. We do competitive analysis to identify market gaps and differentiate in order to achieve a higher level product strategy, such as become market leaders in a specific segment. We develop roadmaps to communicate the strategic milestones we need to deliver in order to achieve our product strategy. We define/identify market problems in order to create business opportunities aligned to strategy…
So when asked how do we make Product Management success measurable and more strategic, I believe the answer is to develop metrics that keep the focus on executing product strategy and maintaining alignment to corporate strategy. If we are performing a product management task, we should ask how does this contribute, affect, or impact the product strategy. If we can’t answer this question we shouldn’t be performing that task. It may be a multitier relationship, but it must tie back to the strategy. Otherwise product managers will get lost in the millions of tasks that don’t help them achieve their goals.
I struggled with this. In general I support the post, especially this “Everything we do as Product Managers should by tied to product strategy.” Executing the product strategy could be blurring the lines to project management. I see it more as defining and delivering the product strategy which I think you covered in the post. For me, the choice of the word ‘executing’ is not working. For me.
Thanks for your comments. I’ve recieved a lot of feedback on this post. There’s a discussion thread on the Product Management Linkedin group if your interested in reading other comments about this topic. Many people had concerns with the focus of this post being around execution and not formulation of strategy. Executing on the product strategy requires multiple organizations and is not only upto the product manager. What I was trying to stress in this post was the need to be focused on product strategy when performing product management tasks. I do believe the product manager is ultimately responsible for realizing the product strategy and making sure that it is executed properly, but they will have to exercise leadership and influence in order to get other organizations in the value chain to help execute the product strategy.
I agree with many of the comments, that product managers should be involved in developing the product strategy. I find it to be something missing in many organizations where early product success and huge growth have happened before the strategy was formulated. Developing product and product line strategy is a great topic, I will address in future posts.
I’d say that we enable the execution of the offer strategies. If it were just product strategy, then the job could scope to project management. But, the scope is much larger than what a project manager would deal with. It’s true that we deal with the world as a project, so we manage this vast project, and the project manager’s project just rolls up into it, as one of the many. Sometimes the project manager’s project isn’t the most important project for that matter. That’s why I’m saying offer strategy.
Since product managers come late to the game in most startups, the product is pretty much underway, and these days may be responding to price-based competition, commodification, late market pressures and recession. In these situations, the focus must move from being narrowly on the product to a wider view of the offer. Your product doesn’t get to market before it is embodied in an offer. And, once it is just like everyone elses, code may not be the quickest way back to differentiation.
Strategies have outcomes, economic outcomes. Product managers must be able to move from the details of the offer out through layers of economic indifference and ensure that the econmic outcomes are reaped. Ultimately, it is the economic outcomes that matter most. As you move up from product management, they will matter even more.
I stress enablement, because product managers don’t execute. The line mangement sees to execution–peope and process. As a product manager, you better not be executing. You influence. You use your influence to inspire and to remove roadblocks–to enable. You orchestrate. You decide. You determine. You legislate. You answer. You get forgiveness for yourself, and for your contributors. You don’t execute. They execute. They know how. You don’t even know the questions to ask about that how. Oh, sure you can code, but is an offer code? Only a tiny bit is code. The rest is anything but code. It’s the contributors that say to themselves “Hey, I’m getting out of be today, because I’m letting the team, my product manager, my company, down.” So provide the leadership, the enablement, and when it is over, have the team stand and take a bow while you and the rest of the room clap. Stand over there with the rest of the romm while you do it. It ain’t about you.
And, while you are driving the executors, you’ll have your opportunities to influence strategy, so lead your executives from behind. Nobody will notice that brilliant strategy you helped them develop, anymore than they will acknowledge how everything got done without obsticles.
Frankly, I’m the invisible man, the shepard leader, I ensure the future, and really, nobody notices.
@David Locke
I really like the idea of an offer strategy. I’ve always thought of that as part of the product strategy, but it makes sense to differentiate the two of them. I agree with you as did Stewart about not executing. Product managers have to influence others to execute the strategy. We had a great session on this at the Austin Product Camp. I do still believe that the product manager is responsible for realizing the strategy. They have to use their leadership and influence to get other organizations and people on board and make the strategy a reality. As far as managing people and making sure they’re executing individual tasks, I’ll leave that to the project manager or direct organizational manager.