Does Your Team Need a Product Manager?

Ahoy, matey! Welcome aboard as we set sail into the complex seas of product management. In a practice as diverse as product management, the role of a Product Manager varies significantly across companies and industries. Taking a step back, by first acknowledging that Products come in myriad forms — websites, mobile apps, databases, and tangible items (e.g., payment cards) across various industries— each demanding a tailored approach to run the day-to-day and long-term vision, it is not hard to see why expectations and responsibilities tied to the role are also just as dynamic as the products themselves.

Managing products at any level is inherently complex. This complexity is influenced by various of factors such as industry-specific considerations, an organization’s internal structure, team dynamics, and resources available. This article aims to explore these complexities and help you and your team assess whether a Product Manager could be the key to navigating the challenges you encounter. By understanding the value a skilled Product Manager brings — regardless of your product’s nature — you can better determine if this role is essential for your team’s success. Join me as we decode the art and science of product management using 9 different assessment areas with some nautical-related metaphors, and let’s uncover how a Product Manager could help drive your team’s success.

If your team lacks a clear product vision and strategy, a Product Manager can act as the captain of your ship, defining and communicating these aspects to align the crew with overarching goals. Without an established product vision, your team might feel like they are aboard a ship bound for an unknown destination. A Product Manager can oversee your ship, ensuring that you continuously track toward and evaluate your intended goal.

Assess whether your team understands market trends and the competitive landscape within the context of your product and organization. A Product Manager can serve as your spy, researching to ensure your product stays relevant and meets user expectations in an ever-evolving world. In industries like Healthcare or Finance, having a seasoned spy onboard can be essential to charting the right course based on intel and trends in the external market.

At Livefront, we believe effective communication can either keep your ship afloat or cause it to sink. Difficulty in managing coordination and communication between stakeholders can be a signal that your team could benefit from a Product Manager. Acting as the ship’s communicator, a Product Manager bridges the gaps between development, marketing, sales, leadership, and other stakeholders, ensuring everyone sails in harmony. By serving as a buffer, they enable your crew of engineers to focus on developing the product rather than being caught in the storm of meetings and requests.

If your team struggles with prioritizing features and creating a roadmap, a Product Manager can provide the charts and compass needed to prioritize tasks based on business value and user impact. In large, highly matrixed organizations, navigating the sea of program-level initiatives that surface across the company can impact multiple teams and drain continuous value delivery. A Product Manager can help you avoid the icebergs and stay on course to deliver user and business outcomes.

Consider whether your team focuses enough on user needs. If you continuously push updates that don’t directly impact user outcomes, a Product Manager can advocate for a user-centric approach and ensuring that opportunities are aligned with user requirements and expectations. If your team is only focusing on process improvements, technical debt, or other non-impactful opportunities, the chances of your team delivering value and allocating enough resources to do so are slim. The course of your product should be set by the stars (your users)- and a Product Manager can steer your ship in that direction.

Assess the level of collaboration between teams tasked with product development. A Product Manager acts as the ship’s liaison, facilitating cross-functional collaboration and fostering a cooperative environment to prevent silos within the teams. By encouraging collective effort, a Product Manager ensures that the ship sails smoothly toward its destination.

Determine how well your team manages the entire product lifecycle, from ideation to launch and ongoing support. A Product Manager can act as your quartermaster to ensure smooth transitions between each phase, and help highlight specific tactics to take depending on where the product is at and where it needs to be over a certain time horizon.

Evaluate how well your team identifies and mitigates risks. A Product Manager is your lookout, conducting risk assessments and developing strategies to navigate challenges during development. They help you steer clear of market shifts, technical challenges, execution delays, and other potential hazards that could rock the boat.

Consider whether your team tracks and utilizes relevant metrics and key performance indicators (KPIs). A Product Manager can serve as the ship’s logkeeper, implementing measurement frameworks to gauge product success and guide future decisions. They navigate the linkage between user needs and every leader’s favorite metric — revenue — ensuring the ship stays on course to deliver on business outcomes.

In summary, the role of a Product Manager is multifaceted and indispensable for teams striving to achieve clarity, alignment, and strategic direction. From defining a clear product vision to ensuring stakeholder alignment, managing risks, and prioritizing user-centric development, a Product Manager wears many hats. The insights and frameworks they bring can transform how your team navigates the product lifecycle, ultimately driving successful outcomes in a competitive market.

If your team struggles with any of the key areas discussed above, or some of these themes resonate with you, it may be time to consider the benefits of bringing a Product Manager on board. The absence of a Product Manager likely means someone else on the team is tasked with a lot of these responsibilities already. By adding in a Product Manager, you can ensure your engineers, developers, architects, and other contributors, have more time to focus on their disciplines. The expertise of a Product Manager could be the missing crew member on your ship, ensuring your product not only meets but exceeds expectations for your users and your organization, while keeping your team sailing smooth.

• Sean Parker

  Product Manager

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