Product Manager Job Description

Last Updated : 27 Aug, 2024

A Product Manager plays a crucial role in the success of any organization, acting as the bridge between business objectives, customer needs, and technical capabilities. They are responsible for defining the product vision, strategy, and roadmap, ensuring that the final product not only meets market demands but also aligns with the company's overall goals.

If you're looking to hire a Product Manager, it's essential to understand the key responsibilities, skills, and qualifications that make an ideal candidate.

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The modern product management used in tech was introduced by Nail H. McElroy(marketing manager of Proctor & Gamble) in 1931. cElroy wrote a 300-page proposal on why the company needed “brand men”—or rather, people who manage specific products. He got P&G to restructure into a brand-centric organization and led to the birth of the product manager in the FMCG field. Later, his disciples Hewlett-Packard implemented this philosophy resulting in record profit. With emphasis on software products and digital era, the product manager job gained a lot of lime light and is now considered an important part of Agile manifesto.

What is Product Management?

Product management is an organizational function that guides the complete product life-cycle, and it is the function that assumes the responsibility for making the link between the company strategy and the needs of users using the products. It includes all the stages that come between the making, selling, and maintenance of the product. Product management is also important for companies to accomplish their strategic goals and solve the problems and needs of their clients. To perform product/project management tasks, companies nowadays hire project and product managers, whose main task is to look after the complete life cycle of a product or line of products. And the main task of the product management cycle is to launch the product and make sure that it meets the requirements of the client or the customer.

Who is a Product Manager?

A product manager is a person who is responsible for managing the roadmap of any product from creation to execution by focusing on what the customer actually wants. A product manager is one who is always responsible for the success or failure of the product. Some of the tasks involved in this process include creating product strategies, distributing, conducting market research, analyzing competitors, interpreting data, marketing, selling, identifying problems, and obtaining feedback on a specific product or service.

He is one who is completely responsible for a product's success and should have a good idea about how the product is being built and how much amount of time is required to build the product. Since a product manager manages the product's lifecycle and leads a team of an associate project manager and technical associates, an associate product manager, a marketing analyst, a data analyst, and many more, they are always expected to have the following skills:

Planning: A product manager is the one who is responsible for making a plan that would be helpful for the team to achieve the target within time. It includes all the things that come under the planning phase, like the scope of the product and the necessary resources that are there, including the budget and the timeline under which the project needs to be completed.
Market understanding: Since the product manager leads various teams, they should have great knowledge about the market, as the product manager is always expected to know the market standards and how to engage with the customers regarding their product's success.
Value maximization: The product manager is responsible for maximizing the value of the product through marketing, and the value is measured using various factors like revenue generated, customer satisfaction, and product sale or usage.
Product representative: The product manager is responsible for introducing the product to the stakeholders and customers to increase revenue generation and product value.
Strategic prioritization: A product manager strategizes priorities related to product development, product release, and maintenance and is also responsible for regular updates related to the product on the basis of customer feedback and market research activities.
Long-term vision: A product manager is not just focused on today's or tomorrow's tasks; their main focus should always be a long-term roadmap and product management that helps the organization grow.
Good written and verbal communication skills: The product managers should be very good communicators with excellent written and verbal communication skills, as they have to communicate regularly with the clients and cross-functional teams regarding product feedback and progress.
Good organizational and leadership skills: A good product manager is always expected to have great leadership skills as during the product management cycle, they have to look after multiple teams and manage and direct them to achieve organizational goals.