What is a Product Manager?
Many times, people ask me what a product manager is and does. I don’t have a precise answer to this question because the role of a product manager in each company is different. However, the key function of a product manager is the same across every company, which is to understand a problem, set the goal, translate into a requirement, and establish success criteria for the product to be successful for both the users and the business. Looking at the key function, the product manager is the one who oversees the product from the start to the finish line.
Here is an example of this key function; the business wants to have an e-commerce website to sell clothing to customers. A product manager has to understand a problem that has to be solved. In this case, the problem is to build an e-commerce website, which is a product for the product manager, but it isn’t only that. The product manager needs to ask and understand what kind of clothing is, how many clothing will be on the site, who the targeted customers are, and etc. since this information allows the product manager to set the goal and translate them into requirements of the product. For example, the goal is to sell women activewear to women in the US and one of the requirements is to allow the customer to purchase the clothing using PayPal. The last step is for the product manager to define the success criteria. The main success criteria are that customers in the US can purchase the clothing from this e-commerce website. For low-level success criteria, the PayPal requirement is a good example, which the customer is able to purchase the clothing using PayPal.
The role of the product manager doesn’t end there when the product is live. Many product managers who own the product still have to maintain and improve the product. From our previous example, we have the PayPal payment feature. The improvement can be at the same feature or the new feature. So the product manager can look at the performance of the PayPal payment on the site and make it even better like reducing the steps or time to complete the purchase using PayPal. But many customers may want to use Apple Pay payment instead of PayPal, the product manager then need to prioritize which feature to do first between improving PayPal payment or introducing Apple Pay. If Apple Pay has a higher priority, then the product manager will work on adding the Apple Pay to the site so the user can purchase clothing with Apple Pay.
However, in many companies as well, product managers are moved to do other projects instead and the same product manager or other product managers may just maintain the product that has been launched only. I call this a maintenance mode since the product itself is working properly and no enhancement is made unless the product behaves incorrectly. Additionally, in another situation, the product that has been live may not have the product manager to maintain it at all unless there is something wrong with it. Then the company will allocate resources to fix that instance only.
Apart from the key function of a product manager, a product manager may oversee project management, profit/loss, business development, technical scope, or even own the product. For project management, in some companies, the product manager has to manage the project like planning resources, timeline, delivery, and etc. If the product manager doesn’t have to do it, the project management role may fall under a project manager. The project management can also be shared between a product manager and an engineering manager. For profit/loss and business development, some product managers who oversee the success of the business has to manage it, but some product managers don’t have to worry about that because there is a general manager of the business unit or a business operation manager to be responsible for the business part. For technical scope, many product managers who focus on the product planning and design don’t need to worry about the engineering aspect of the product at all since there is a technical person on the technical side to handle it, which the technical person can be a technical product manager or an engineering manager. If a product manager’s focus is on technical planning and implementation, that product manager is a technical product manager. (Note: there is another meaning of a technical product manager that is a product manager with a technical background who oversees all aspect of product management. This role can simply be called a product manager as well, but it depends on each company.) For owning the product, many product managers own the product to make sure that the product is successful for the business and those product managers are called a product owner, but some product managers don’t own the product and build the product from the direction of stakeholders. Those stakeholders are a product owner instead.
In summary, since the role of a product manager is so diverse in each company, there is no precise definition of a product manager that can fit the product manager’s role in every company. However, at a high level, a product manager is the person who manages, maintains, and improves the product for the users and to meet the business’ goal.
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