Product Management 101

Product Management: Definition, Workflow, and Required Skills

• Product management involves guiding the development of a product from creation to launch and iteration.
• Product managers need knowledge of different departments within the organization and work closely with colleagues in different departments.
• The aim of a product manager is to create a product that provides the most value to users.
• The product manager follows a workflow that includes identifying user needs, deciding whether to improve an existing product or build a new one, creating and testing a prototype, and launching and improving the product.
• Business awareness, technology, and UX design are the three essential areas of expertise for a product manager.
• A product manager needs to align their product ideas and outcomes with the organization's goals of growing and gaining revenue.
• Given the vast technological possibilities and rapid advancements, product managers need to stay up to date with the technologies that could be integrated into their product.
• To design products better, product managers need to be able to visualize the user's experience and discuss design solutions to improve it.
• Product managers work with stakeholders from different teams within their organization.
• The product manager needs to repeat the workflow process to create a continuous feedback loop.
• The workflow process includes identifying user needs, deciding whether to improve an existing product or build a new one, creating and testing a prototype, launching and improving the product, and keeping track of the progress.
• Product managers are sometimes said to be in the middle of a skills trilemma, as they need to have skills in business, technology, and UX design.