A lean Process of Product Management
As a product manager you participate in the process of developing and launching a product that is right for the market niche selected and is competitive in that market for the time of launch.
Here are some of the phases you’ll go through as a product manager:
Portfolio planning:
where you plan the total product portfolio and how the products relate to each other.
Product planning:
where you plan what drives the individual product in the portfolio that you’ve been assigned. This sets the stage for the final product, your final product should meet these drivers. You may divert from these drivers if during the product development process new information is learned that endangers the competitiveness of the original product position.
Product conceptiin:
where you decide on the design and feature set of the product.
Product requirements documentation: where you create a document or dataset that is used by the engineering team as a reference for what they need to deliver.
Marketing planning, where you plan how and where the product will be sold. You’ll prioritize channels to market for the product.
Marketing materials development:
where you’ll work with the marketing department to create marketing campaigns for the product. Your main role will be to make sure the product’s capabilities are accurately reflected and the product differentiation is highlighted.
Support staff initiatives:
where you’ll make sure your product support and warranty people are able to help customers who run into trouble with the product.
Sales staff initiatives:
where you’ll make sure that the customer facing sales staff for your product knows how to sell the product. Make sure they understand the competitive differentiation. Also, if your product has a known weakness, you’ll want to create a story for them how to counter customer questions around this.
Launch of the product:
probably the best feeling ever for any product manager. Almost on par with holding your newborn baby.
Testing and Metrics:
Based on your own needs, the data returned from A/B testing and documenting if the tweaks that may be required.
Product refresh:
depending on the industry, there will be annual or mid-lifecycle updates. This varies from software updates, to minor design tweaks, to packaging updates. The main purpose here is to keep the product competitive and prevent the product from looking stale in the consumers eyes.
