PM Role - An attempt at "visualization"
I have always visualized the PM role as a "bridging" role. When i say bridging it should not be interpreted as "message" forwarding role but a Leadership role. Business decisions are fluid and across different groups when these decisions are being taken there should be "someone" who has to have a holistic view of the product direction and ensure these decisions are aligned with the same. The someone happens to be PM ( If you have read product management related books this situation is used to highlight the fact the PM is similar to the CEO of the product ). So the natural question that arises at this point is can we have a yardstick to check if the decisions are in alignment. The yardstick I think the PM should be using is
- " Is this decision aligned with Customer Success " ?
- " Is this decision aligned with Product Success " ?
As straightforward as the above two questions sound depending on the situation applying the above question in conjunction with technical insight and relevant data in most cases would act as a filter and gives the conviction to say "no" when the alignment does not occur independent of how demanding and tough the situation is and also helps in decision making process.
To explain the PM role further I tried making an image that shows the different functions across which a product manager would be expected to bridge in a pictorial fashion.
In the above picture let us explore the individual angle of interaction in a bit more detail.
- Sales : From giving timely response to queries related products/features to providing material that would make technology digestible to bring out the product differentiator the key role here is to help sales in a manner that would help closing deals at the same time ensuring customer/product interests are in alignment.
- Engineering : Once the product roadmap is defined based on factors like how technology is evolving, customer feedback and how the competition is positioned engineering interaction involves conveying what needs to be done to take the product forward in terms of requirement. This part involves getting buying in from engineering management and also very important to get the engineers excited about what to look forward to in future.
- Customer : Business success is directly associated with customer success. Happy customers translates to better business outcome. So to have a successful customer relationship it is key to understand the customer business and how they are looking at evolving in future. This directly impacts how the product road map would evolve. In addition regular interaction also brings forth pain points associated with the product.
- Design : In heavy tech oriented products it is a surprise how low a weightage is given to usability. How much ever cool feature/product is unless the accessibility and ease of use is not addressed the product acceptance would suffer. So usability is an important aspect that needs to be worked along with engineers.
- Revenue : Revenue is a combination of successful deliverable and customer happiness. There is a saying "Take care of the means and end would take care of itself". This would be very true in this scenario.
- Competition : Healthy respect for competition is essential. In addition to tracking the technology/market trend tracking the competitor's offering and understanding the use cases associated with the same gives better insight while planning for product improvement.
This is a very elementary take on the individual functions. As things move forward will take individual function and share insights around the same.
- " Is this decision aligned with Customer Success " ?
- " Is this decision aligned with Product Success " ?
As straightforward as the above two questions sound depending on the situation applying the above question in conjunction with technical insight and relevant data in most cases would act as a filter and gives the conviction to say "no" when the alignment does not occur independent of how demanding and tough the situation is and also helps in decision making process.
To explain the PM role further I tried making an image that shows the different functions across which a product manager would be expected to bridge in a pictorial fashion.
In the above picture let us explore the individual angle of interaction in a bit more detail.
- Sales : From giving timely response to queries related products/features to providing material that would make technology digestible to bring out the product differentiator the key role here is to help sales in a manner that would help closing deals at the same time ensuring customer/product interests are in alignment.
- Engineering : Once the product roadmap is defined based on factors like how technology is evolving, customer feedback and how the competition is positioned engineering interaction involves conveying what needs to be done to take the product forward in terms of requirement. This part involves getting buying in from engineering management and also very important to get the engineers excited about what to look forward to in future.
- Customer : Business success is directly associated with customer success. Happy customers translates to better business outcome. So to have a successful customer relationship it is key to understand the customer business and how they are looking at evolving in future. This directly impacts how the product road map would evolve. In addition regular interaction also brings forth pain points associated with the product.
- Design : In heavy tech oriented products it is a surprise how low a weightage is given to usability. How much ever cool feature/product is unless the accessibility and ease of use is not addressed the product acceptance would suffer. So usability is an important aspect that needs to be worked along with engineers.
- Revenue : Revenue is a combination of successful deliverable and customer happiness. There is a saying "Take care of the means and end would take care of itself". This would be very true in this scenario.
- Competition : Healthy respect for competition is essential. In addition to tracking the technology/market trend tracking the competitor's offering and understanding the use cases associated with the same gives better insight while planning for product improvement.
This is a very elementary take on the individual functions. As things move forward will take individual function and share insights around the same.
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