Software Product Manager

What is a product manager?

As mentioned above, the product manager oversees and manages the product throughout each stage of its life cycle — from introduction through to maturity and even decline. They are expected to translate business strategies into technical requirements, including specifications for software development.

A product manager also manages project scope by making tradeoffs between competing objectives (such as features vs. time/costs), creating a vision that aligns with company goals, tracking software development progress, etc.

What does a software product manager do?

A software product manager directs the specialization, goals, structure, and expectations of their products. Some of the duties of a software product manager include:

Creative ideation

Software product managers should have a well-developed creative process that helps them generate, develop, and curate new ideas. They determine the ideas to be worked on based on feedback received about strategy and development processes within the company. User feedback also helps to improve processes, so it’s vital for the product manager to consider it when brainstorming.

Product strategy

The product manager must also work on the product strategy by bringing the vision to life. This involves developing and maintaining a practical roadmap that takes all strategic goals into account.

Development releases

A critical part of being a software product manager is keeping up with timelines for implementation, delivery schedules, and deadlines during the development phase.

Identifying important features

The product manager determines which features to include in their product by considering their relative ranking. The features are ranked by their level of priority/importance and the most essential ones are included on the final list.

Software product manager job description

To build great software, product managers need to play several different roles simultaneously. They work with the development and engineering teams to build out new features that best address customer and market needs. 

The key responsibility of a software product manager is to successfully represent the software development team's interests to the stakeholders and customers. In addition, the software product manager is responsible for:

• Translating business goals into specific software requirements 
• Prioritizing software features based on market need analyses and company strategies
• Managing software project scope by making tradeoffs between competing software requirements, such as time vs. cost and software security vs. speed 
• Prioritizing feature requests from software development teams
• Crystallizing the product vision and working closely with software engineers/the technical team to define its specifications
• Ensuring that the software solution is successfully meeting business goals and users' needs
• Tracking progress against plan and resolving any variances as soon as they are identified
• Making tradeoffs between features, schedule, and costs based on their relationship to business goals, company policies, software architecture constraints, and software development team capabilities

Are product owners and product managers the same?

What's the difference between a product owner and a product manager? These two roles are often confused with each other, and both require the ability to combine business, technical, and design thinking. 

Product owner

A product owner is a core participant of an organization’s product team.

As with all Scrum roles, it's not the job title that defines a team member as a product owner but rather the responsibility it entails. Here are the key roles that every product owner plays:

1. Value maximization: A product owner is responsible for maximizing the value of their product. Value can be measured, amongst other things, by revenue generated, customer satisfaction, engagement levels, and product usage.
2. Revenue ownership: Every product owner must have the revenue impact in mind. Since they lead the budget decisions, the buck stops with them. So, if the project doesn't deliver value according to the business vision, the product owner is responsible.
3. Business strategy: A product owner needs to be business-savvy. They must clearly understand the product's market, competitive environment, and market positioning. If you don't know the ins and outs of your industry, how can you make sound decisions? Similarly, you should be able to communicate clearly about your product's value proposition with anyone in the company.
4. Product representative: The product owner represents the product to the stakeholders and keeps everyone focused on maximizing its value. 

Being a product owner means being responsible for maximizing value, understanding your product's industry and its competitive context, and knowing how to communicate this effectively with different stakeholders.

Product manager

A product manager leads cross-functional teams and is responsible for the success of a product from its conception to its end. Here are the key roles that every product manager plays:

1. Market understanding: Since a product manager leads their team through development, they must have deep knowledge of the market. A great product manager understands the market's pain points and how to engage with users.
2. Market research: Product managers execute market research for their product using surveys, interviews, and focus groups. Whenever teams need to gain insights about the user needs, the market, or the product itself, the product manager conducts the research.
3. Product strategy: A product manager must understand the long-term market vision and convey it to their team in an easily digestible way. They also ensure that the tactical deliverables are tied to the product strategy  so that all features are aligned.
4. Strategic prioritization: A product manager prioritizes the new features or products to be developed. They base their decisions on strategic alignment as well as user feedback from their market research activities.

Another way to think about the distinction between the product owner and product manager is to imagine you have two roles at your company: product management and product ownership.

The product manager is responsible for the high-level direction of your product (i.e., strategy, roadmaps, positioning, etc.), while the product owner is responsible for maximizing value.

• The product owner leads the Scrum team and makes sure that they build the right things
• The product manager focuses on the bigger picture of what needs to be built

Skills every product manager should have

The product manager role is an exciting blend of business and technology. It requires knowledge of both of these aspects and the ability to communicate effectively with all stakeholders involved in product development. 

Let’s look at the core skills every product manager should have:

1. Analytical abilities: Product managers need to understand how problems can be resolved with a targeted product strategy that meets customer and business needs in the best possible way.
2. Excellent communication skills: Every product manager must be an effective communicator, with excellent written and speaking skills. They will have to interact seamlessly with customers, engineering teams, and executives every day.
3. Cross-functional partnership: A product manager should understand the bigger picture and how to convey it to others. They should know what's feasible from a technology perspective and how different stakeholders can help create value for their product.
4. Long-term vision: Finally, a great product manager isn't just focused on today or tomorrow. They strive to create a long-term roadmap and product management best practices for the organization.

The software product manager is a critical position in an organization. They are responsible for managing how customers use and interact with the product, including UX design, marketing strategy, customer insights research, pricing decisions, and more.