What is Product Management?

The definition of product management differs from one company to the other, and the role they play. But to give it a general definition, product management is the practice of strategically driving the development, market launch, and continual support of the company’s products. On a day-to-day basis, Product Managers (PM’s) work closely with engineers and designers to execute the product vision along with conducting user research, brainstorming product marketing, and collaborating with cross-functional teams.

Product Management became increasingly prevalent over the last few years. The criticality of the role emerged due to its intersections with many different areas across the business.

What Does a Product Manager Really Do?

Define the product vision & Strategy – Those are important pillars that will be the compass of the product manager and the way they communicate with their stakeholders. In other cases, the product manager arrives with a vision defined but waiting for a PM to set the strategic direction

Conduct market research and analysis – This is an ongoing exercise that PM’s continuously conduct to validate their strategic direction and be on top of the market to seize available opportunities in order to expand their product offerings

Define the product roadmap – It’s a well-known concept to set expectations, it usually comes in the form of quarterly/yearly roadmaps. The shorter the period the more detailed the roadmap is. The roadmap is typically communicated and aligned with all the stakeholders impacted by the product

Analyze customers feedback and needs – Its crucial to always stay in touch with customers and understand their pain in order to create solution that will keep them satisfied (and ensure their retention)

Prioritize product features – The PMs own the prioritization of product features that is based on the customer needs, business objectives, and technical feasibility. This requires the PM to work closely with the related stakeholders to ensure that priorities align with the product vision

Monitor product development progress – The PM should monitor product development progress, tracking milestones, timelines, and budget. It is usually done through having regular status meetings update to identify and mitigate any risk or any issue that may arises

Getting Into Product Management:

It is now well-known that product management sits at the intersection of multiple disciplines, business, design, technology. And it can expand to more disciplines like, sales, customer success, marketing and so on. A future PM might have an academic background in one of these disciplines. It’s generally accepted that background knowledge of one of these areas is required to succeed as high-level PM, that doesn’t necessarily dictate they are the only entry doors;however, other paths may require more work and effort.

Individuals who see that product management is the field that they want to pursue should start cultivating the necessary skills. Problem solving and being able to analyze product data to make informed decisions, leadership to inspire and motivate the team to achieve the product goals. As they grow, they will start developing more product sense, customer empathy, and better understanding of technical trade-offs.

For early career PM’s, it is important to focus on the following skills and aim to master them within the first years as PM’s:

Communication – Product managers are in the middle of the circle, not the expert in both ends but they are the most suited to make product decisions and communicate them accordingly as they see the product from a 360 view. Always aiming to communicate the way before the how to all of their stakeholders

Prioritization – PM’s need to relentlessly prioritize their product roadmap and prepare to make trade-offs and compromises to achieve a faster impact for their product. Understanding the impact, reach, complexity, and how confident they are of the estimated reach and impact

Execution – After communicating priorities, and aligning with the related stakeholders on them. The PM needs to lead the way of making these ideas a reality by collaborating with cross functional teams to successfully launch the product, this includes setting timelines, allocating the necessary people, and monitoring the overall progress.

Interview Preparation Insights 

In general, candidates go through 3 stages of interview, HR, Technical interview, and cultural fit interview. The technical interview is the one that is different from others, it usually involves product, analytical, technical, behavioral questions.

Product Questions:

They are usually open ended questions to leave the door open for the candidate to have a deeper dive to answer them, below are such questions:

• How to prioritize product features ?

• Tell us about the time you made a data driven decision?

• How to stay user-focused?

These questions differ based on the role, company, and the industry you are interviewing at.

Technical Questions:

It’s not commonly asked during the interview unless the role is more technical and involves working heavily with API’s. These are usually given for technical product manager interviews. They are surface-level questions with a goal to understand how the PM works with the engineering team. Below are few questions:

• What is the importance of engineering team as a stakeholder

• What do you think is the best methodology for product development that engineers should employ?

Analytical Questions:

These questions are asked to give the interviewer a sense of your thinking process and your approach in breaking down problems in a clear structure. These questions are based on assumptions, examples are:

• How much would it cost to buy New York City?

• How many lightbulbs are in Country x ?

• Product Metrics are down, how would you determine the root cause of their fall?

Behavioral Questions: 

These are questions used to assess the interview soft skills and how they would behave in different situations, where the pressure is high. Such questions are:

• Tell me about a time where you faced difficult challenges in your role and how did you handle them?

• Tell me about a mistake you made and how did you handle it?

• What is your communication method with your customers and how do you interact with them?

• If you have a stakeholder asking for feature x, and another stakeholder is asking for feature y, how do you choose which one to implement?

Career Trajectory Of A Product Manager 

Associate Product Manager (APM) – This is the entry level role in the field, usually occupied by recent graduates. They don’t own the product but are given responsibilities on key projects to support senior product managers. Responsibilities include

• Competition analysis and market research

• Collaboration with internal teams within the company

• Optimizing an existing product feature and creating new ones

• Support in product testing, troubleshooting, and bug fixes

The goal here is to prepare them for the upcoming role to be a PM but on a smaller scale with making product decisions that are not yet major.

Product Manager – they are directly responsible for the product and are involved heavily in the product life cycle as they are the ones with better understanding of the customer needs.They lead the communication with related teams to ensure that work is up and running on the right track.

• Define the product vision, strategy, and roadmap

• Work closely with with sales and marketing team to align on the shared product vision and strategy

• Write product requirements for the engineering and supports teams

• Collect data and analyze them to introduce new products and features

• Get customer feedback to continuously improve the product

• Prioritize the right backlog to make sure that the right problems are solved

• Monitor the overall product development performance

Senior Product Manager (SPM) – they work on similar tasks as the PM, but has more direct communication with the executives, compliance, and legal departments. They have more decision-making authority on the product that has a greater impact and higher visibility

• Manage the entire product roadmap form from ideation to rollout

• Oversee more than one product at a given time, if additional products are there within the company

• Support in the recruitment of product managers

• Mentor associate PM’s

• Visualize long term plans of the product

• Expand the business and product strategy

Product Lead – This role is usually taken by the highest ranked PM within the company (other titles for the role include VP of product, Group Product Manager, or Chief Product Officer.) They are responsible for establishing the product vision and making sure all teams across the company are working towards it.

• Work closely with with SPM’s and PM’s on the product development and strategy

• Manage multiple teams, establish higher priorities and communicate to create schedules of product life cycles

• Lead performance reviews and develop plans for improving performance

• responsible for hiring, training, and evaluating team members

• Lead by example to inspire an optimal PM culture that is more customer focus and research-backed

Helpful Resources For Product Management 

Interview Preparation:

Naukri Blog’s 30+ Product Manager Interview Questions and Answers – More questions and sample answers for behavioral and analytical interview

Hired — How to Get a Great Product Job: Tailored guide-to-go for PM positions in top tech companies.

Decode and Conquer — Answers to Product Management Interviews: The author gives an industry insider’s perspective on how to conquer the most difficult PM interview questions.

CRACKING THE PM INTERVIEW – How To Land A Product Manager Job In Technology

General Resources: 

INSPIRED: How To Create Products Customers Love

The Lean Product PlayBook – How to Innovate with Minimum Viable Products and Rapid Customers Feedback

Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products

Cracking The PM Career: The Skills, Frameworks, and Practices to Become a Great Product Manager by Jackie Bavaro and Gayle Laakmann McDowell