As a new product manager or even a senior PM, you may be a little confused about this position. What exactly is a product manager? What are the main responsibilities of this position? In different fields of IT industry, even different companies in the same field seem to have different definitions of this position.

Although the roles and responsibilities of product managers are different in different companies, there are some key responsibilities that any product manager should undertake. Can be summarized as the following six aspects:

1. 1 market research

Market research refers to studying the market to understand customer demand, competition and market power, and its ultimate goal is to find potential opportunities for product innovation or improvement.

Market research can be conducted in the following ways:

1) communicate with users and potential users.

2) Communicate with front-line colleagues who directly face customers (such as sales, customer service and technical support). )

3) study market analysis reports and articles.

4) Try competing products

5) carefully observe user behavior, etc.

Market research will eventually form a business opportunity, product strategy or business requirement document (BRD), which will explain in detail how to make use of the potential opportunities.

The main results are: BRD or business opportunity or product strategy.

1.2 product definition and design

1, product definition refers to determining what the product needs to do. Product Requirements Document (PRD) is usually used for description, and PRD may contain the following information:

1) product vision

2) Target market

3) Competition analysis

4) Detailed description of product functions

5) Priority of product functions

6) Product use cases

7) System requirements

8) Performance requirements

9) Sales and support requirements, etc.

2. Product design refers to determining the appearance of the product, including user interface design (UI) and user interaction design, including all user experience parts.

In large companies, PM usually works with UI designers or interaction designers to complete product design, but in small companies or startups, these tasks may need product managers to do.

This is the most valuable part of the product manager's work. If this part is not included in the work of the product manager, then it is almost certainly not the work of the product manager.

The main achievements are: Product Requirements Document (PRD).

1.3 project management

Project management refers to people who lead different teams (including engineers, QA, UI designers, marketing, sales, customer service, etc. ) Develop and release products on time within the budget. May include the following work contents:

1) Ensure the input of resources.

2) Make a project plan

3) Track the project progress according to the plan.

4) Determine the critical path

5) Strive for additional investment when necessary.

6) Report the project progress to the competent leader, etc.

In large companies, there is usually a project manager to handle most of the project management work, and the product manager only needs to provide support. However, in startups, product managers usually need to manage their own projects. In some companies, the technical director can also handle most project management affairs as a project manager.

1.4 product introduction

It mainly includes communicating the advantages, functions and target markets of products with internal colleagues such as bosses, sales, marketing and customer service, and may also include introducing products to the outside world such as media, industry analysts and users.

Product managers of large companies usually have product marketing, marketing and media relations (PR) teams to help them introduce their products to the outside world.

For product managers, this is the second most valuable job besides product definition and design, especially when introducing products to bosses and marketing colleagues and exciting them.

1.5 product market

Mainly is the external information dissemination-telling the product to the outside world. It usually includes making product data sheets, manuals, websites, Flash demonstrations, media topics, exhibitions and demonstrations.

In large companies, product marketing is usually not the responsibility of PM, and these companies will have special product marketing managers to take care of this work. Of course, the biggest drawback of this division of labor is that it leads to low communication efficiency and weakens external communication.

In some companies, "product management" and "product market" are regarded as synonyms, and one person will bear the responsibility of both. In those companies that separate the product management team from the product marketing team, the latter will take care of the job responsibilities mentioned in this section, and they may also undertake some work of "market research", "product introduction" and "product life cycle" management.

1.6 product lifecycle management

Refers to those product management activities that conceptualize, release, mature and withdraw from the whole life cycle of the market with the product experience.

The main work includes:

1) product positioning

2) product pricing and promotion

3) Product line management

4) Competitive strategy

5) Establish or acquire partners.

6) Determine and establish cooperative relations, etc.

The product manager works with product marketing, BD and marketing communication colleagues to accomplish these tasks.

The product cycle is usually divided into five stages:

Conceptualization stage of 1.6. 1

This stage is mainly to put forward some product concepts and market demand. For the product, it is only some descriptions, lacking specific quantitative indicators, but this stage is the basis of the cycle. Only by accumulating a certain demand can we provide a basis for the specific work of product managers.

At this stage, the product manager is mainly responsible for putting forward and expressing the concept, outlining the outline of a product, allowing relevant departments and senior managers to accept the concept, get support and allocate resources.

This stage can be divided into two steps: market data acquisition and demand analysis.

The main achievements are: market demand feedback records and demand analysis reports.

1.6.2 productization stage

This stage is mainly to draw and quantify concepts, set product indicators, form designable functions and product prototypes, and incorporate them into the company's product development plan through the company's approval.

At this stage, the product manager is mainly responsible for quantifying the product, which should include product function, product model, development progress, required resources, etc.

This stage can be divided into three steps: market communication, product design and scheme confirmation.

The main achievements are: product design documents, product development plans and product project lists.

1.6.3 technical stage

This stage is mainly about materializing product prototypes, and developing physical objects with practical operation value according to product design documents (physical objects here refer to physical carriers that can realize specific functions).

At this stage, it is mainly implemented by R&D and production department. The responsibility of the product manager is to coordinate various resources and make every effort to ensure that the technical stage can be carried out according to the product development plan.

This stage can be divided into two steps: product development and product acceptance.

The main results are: deliverable products and technical white papers.

1.6.4 commercialization stage

This stage is mainly to turn the delivered products into marketable commodities, that is, to package the products commercially, including connotative commercialization and extensional commercialization.

Connotation commercialization refers to the commercialization process of the product itself, such as product manuals, sales manuals, packaging elements and so on.

Extended commercialization refers to the process of determining the elements of promoting commodity sales, such as media preparation, soft text preparation and channel preparation.

At this stage, the product manager's main responsibility is to be responsible for the whole process of connotation commercialization, assist the sales department to complete the process of extension commercialization and complete the product release.

This stage can be divided into two steps: commercialization and product release.

The main achievements are: marketable products and product release, as well as a large number of commercialization elements.

1.6.5 marketization stage

This stage is mainly to track the sales progress after the product is released (I am used to tracking it for 3 months), actively push the sales department to complete the sales task, track the sales feedback at any time, make records, adjust the strategy of the product in a product year, and provide the basis for the next development of the product.

At this stage, the main responsibility of the product manager is to communicate with the sales department and help solve the product problems encountered in the sales process.

This stage can be divided into two steps: product tracking and product summary.

The main achievements are: the completion of scheduled sales channels and sales feedback records.

The general product planning cycle consists of these five stages. After entering the market-oriented stage, you can actually enter the first stage. The product planning cycle itself is a spiral historical development process, starting from the concept and gradually completing a product planning cycle, which includes many such product planning cycles. As a full-time participant in the product, the responsibility of the product manager will greatly exceed that of the horizontal department. Its importance and irreplaceability are also obvious. We can see that in those enterprises whose product manager system is relatively perfect and valued, their products have strong market perception ability and strong market substitution ability, which also promotes their product innovation ability and development ability.