What’s the product manager career path
What is product management? What's the product management career path? I believe you might have a lot of questions related to product manager. Product management is an organizational function that governs every stage of the product life cycle, from development to positioning and pricing, based on the interests of the product and the customer. To create the best possible product, product managers represent the client's interests in the organization and ensure that the market situation is fully considered.
By focusing on the customer, design teams create products with better designs and increased productivity. In the era of technology, when mature products are quickly replaced by new, more perfect solutions, it is more important than ever to be able to subtly feel the needs of the client and create solutions specifically for him. This is the task of product management.
- Part 1: Product manager roles and responsibilities
- Part 2: The Product Manager Career Path
- Part 3: Useful wireframe tool for the product manager
Product manager roles and responsibilities
A product manager is a person who is responsible for the entire process of creating and monetizing a product. He makes a decision on the choice of the audience for the product, the features to be developed, pricing, user support rules. He works in conditions of uncertainty and conducts market research, audience, user behavior in the product in order to clarify his picture of the world. The product manager prioritizes each task and helps the team publish product updates as quickly as possible.
The task of the Product Manager is to manage a product or a product group across departments and to successfully position it on the market. The product manager has a strategic responsibility. He creates marketing concepts, positions the product on the market, and looks after it across all life cycles. The tasks of a product manager, therefore, range from planning to marketing to the decommissioning of products. Careful market analysis and extensive knowledge of the needs of customers and competing products are also part of the job of a product manager. The tasks of a product manager are often of a coordinative or organizational nature. Therefore, the product manager must be creative.
Source: Unsplash
In summary, we can say that product managers are usually entrusted with five major areas of responsibility:
- Support for product development
- Preparation and implementation of the market launch
- Ongoing product support (marketing plans, operational implementation)
- Market observation (trends, competition)
- Product controlling (evaluations, budgeting)
The Product Manager Career Path
According to a report from the Product Management Institute, "Demand over the next 10 years for project managers is growing faster than demand for workers in other occupations." The report projects that there will be almost 214,000 new project management-related jobs per year in the United States. At the same time, the report notes that, while the demand for project management roles is increasing, the number of Product Manager professionals is decreasing. (Source: LucidChart)
Source: Pexels
Product Manager Career
The typical career in product management leads from Junior Product Manager to Product Manager to Senior Product Manager to Head of Product Management.
Entry-level Product Manager
As an Entry-Level Product Manager, you should have many skills. As an Entry-level product manager, you should have a solid understanding of the dos related to the following:
- Market research
- Product feature validation
- Feature prioritization
- Road map planning
- Conflict resolution
- Pricing and revenue modeling
If you want to be a product manager, you should have a strategical and analytical approach when you make decisions. You'll also need good communication skills because you'll need to relay ideas and collaborate with development teams, marketing, and sales teams, engineers, and stakeholders. You'll need to communicate strategic plans to executive stakeholders and keep those stakeholders informed. Additionally, you'll need to be able to coordinate and prioritize different tasks.
Source: Pexels
Junior Product Manager
A junior product manager primarily takes on the assistant function, where he is responsible for the administrative and organizational support of the product management team. He also works on product concepts and helps with the launch of new products. Competitive analysis as well as market research and assortment analysis also belong to the field of activity of a Junior Product Manager.
In addition to a completed apprenticeship with further training in marketing. The required skills include good computer and language skills as well as strong analytical and conceptual skills. You should also be able to describe yourself with the following attributes: Innovative, goal-oriented, flexible, team-friendly, and sociable.
Senior Product Manager
As soon as you have learned what makes a good product manager, you should be able to pass this knowledge on to colleagues and your team. As Senior Product Manager, you are now the point of contact for less experienced colleagues. You have to learn to support the entire team and management. As a Senior Product Manager, you will take on complex tasks and be responsible for product lines. Senior product managers support product developments with high strategic importance for the company.
Head of Product Management
The biggest challenge is managing product management teams and multiple product lines. You are no longer only responsible for the results of your own product range or individual product developments, but for the results of your team. As the head of product management, you have a decisive influence on the company's development. When leading a Product management team, you should leave enough creative freedom and prefer goal-oriented leadership.
Useful wireframe tool for the product manager
Every product manager dreams of a smooth and flawless product management process: from concept to release. But this is possible only in theory or in an ideal world. Experience, knowledge, or managerial acumen may not be enough. Then universal and specialized tools and services come to the rescue, which facilitates Product manager tasks, increase the effectiveness of processes, and make the product competitive. But the question is that what tools do a product manager need to feel confident in today's marketplace?
Wondershare Mockitt allows designers to create dynamic prototypes and layouts, test them for usability, and sync all progress. Mockitt allows multiple people to work on or view a project at the same time, just like in Google Docs - letting you see who has it open to collaborating in real-time. You will see who is working and what is doing. There is a browser version that makes it available to everyone in an instant. And as an added bonus, the tool is free for individual use, so you can check it out and see how it works.
Mockitt is one of the best tools for UI/UX designers and product managers. It will take your design to the next level. You can take a static prototype and turn it into a clickable one. Prototypes are compatible with:
- iPhone;
- iPad;
- Apple Watch;
- Apple TV;
- Macbook;
- Windows;
- Android.
You can remotely demonstrate your work to the customer right on his device, which is undoubtedly very convenient. Mockitt gives access to the project not only to designers, but also to all other team members. This allows product managers, copywriters, and even clients to view the layout online and immediately comment with edits or comments. Sharing a project and working on the same layout at the same time allows you to complete the task much faster.
