Product Management: Role of PM

Question 1

4 Questions Product managers have to answer

Answer 1

What are we building?

• what product should do
• Do people WANT it?
• Does it create value?

Who are we building it for?

• WHO is the user
• What are their needs

Why are we building this?

• What is the Impact (user value & business objectives)
• Why THIS solution?

When are we building this?
-Roadmap

Question 2

The goal of product management

Answer 2

To bring a product to market

Question 3

Core skills of product manager

Answer 3

Strategy
Communication
Coordination
Agility
Problem-solving

Question 4

Why is Product management important?

Answer 4

Easy to build a product that fails, much harder to successfully bring a product to market

There’s an infinite number of problems that could be solved. Product Managers identify and define problems for the team to solve while making sure that:

• the problem is real
• the users are real
• the solution provides value

Question 5

PRD

Answer 5

Product Requirements Doc. A document written by a product manager that describes why a product should be built and what the product should do, as well as how to measure success of the product.

Question 6

Roadmap

Answer 6

A document that describes when specific products and features will be built.

Question 7

PgM

Answer 7

Program Manager. A person who helps a variety of teams (engineering, design, ops, etc) execute against the product roadmap. A program manager keeps the team productive and on track, as well as flags risks.

Question 8

TPM

Answer 8

Technical Program Manager. A more technical program manager, who works closely with engineering teams to execute against the product roadmap. A TPM is more involved in the technical details of software development.

Question 9

QA

Answer 9

Quality Assurance. A team that creates test plans and tests your product to identify and prevent bugs and issues from entering production and affecting users.

Question 10

PR

Answer 10

Public Relations. A team that helps you tell the story about your product with the public and media.

Question 11

i18n

Answer 11

Internationalization. A team and/or process that helps you bring your product to new markets around the globe.

Question 12

PM’s positioning

Answer 12

at the center of Design, Business, and Technology

Design: Understandes user needs, and motivations. Acts as a user advocate

Business: understandes business goals, Alignes product to meet those goals

Technology: Understand how to biuld product, its complexity, risks and tradeoffs

Question 13

Role of PM

Answer 13

Idea to Launch

Drive teams to alignment

Identify and Define problems

Prioritize what the team is focusing on

Spokesperson for product

Secure buy-in

Coordinate

Question 14

How does Company Size influence PM’s role?

Answer 14

Small:

• broader focus
• less support
• less process

Big

• in Depth focus
• More support
• More process

Question 15

How does product philosophy impact the role of the PM

Answer 15

Product Driven

• PMS write requirements
• Eng builds based on requirements
• Pros: Customer-centric approach, build what customer wants
• Cons: Lack of empathy from non-customer facing teams

Engineering Driven

• Eng builds things
• PM brings them to market
• Pros: Promotes technical innovation, Sometimes users don’t always know what they want
• Cons: Increases possibility that product won’t resonate with the customer

Hybrid driven

• PM’s write requirements but include eng in identifying requirements
• Eng builds based on requirements, but pm is included in Eng design

Question 16

How does Type of User influence PM Role

Answer 16

Consumer

• Focus on user problems
• Provides value of the user
• User purchases product
• Faster place of iteration

Enterprise

• Focus on business + user problems
• Provides most value to the company, some value to the user
• Business is the customer who purchases, might not be the end-user
• Slower iteration (more problems/requirements)

Question 17

How does Type of product influence PM Role

Answer 17

PM can focus on:

Software
Hardware
Data
Growth
i18n

each has its own focus and processes

Question 18

How can you test the effectiveness of your communication?

Answer 18

You can test the effectiveness of your communication by asking people on the team “What are we building and why?” If you ask 5 people that question and get the same answer back from everyone the PM is doing a good job. If you ask 5 people and get 6 different answers back, the PM has more work to do

Question 19

Who do PM’s work with?

Answer 19

Everyone

The product launch village:

UX Researchers
Designers
Engineers
TPM + PgM
QA team
Data Scientist
Marketing & PR team
Sales team
Support team
Legal & Privacy teams
i18n

Question 20

Difference between PM and PgM

Answer 20

Pm

• Understand the user, the problem, and the market
• Figuring out what to build
• Create PRM

PgM

• Understand teh team, the org, and how to get things done
• Executes against the PRM

Question 21

What should a PM do the first week at a new company?

Answer 21

Learn about the Company

• What the company does
• How the company makes money
• Short term goals and objectives
• Long term goals and objectives
• Current projects in flight

Meet the people
- the Product Launch village

Experience the product
- Check out the product’s website
- Review the app store listing
- Use the product
Journal of my experience using it
- Questions that I have about why it is the way it is
- List of issues that I encountered while using the product
- Get help for the product
- Review the support site
- Reach out to customer support for help with an issue
- Use competitor products
- Compare similarities and differences
-Shadow support and listen to customer calls

Understand the Process

• Learn the process for how to get things done
• What needs to be reviewed
• What requires approval

Question 22

How do PM’s identify requirements

Answer 22

Research
User interviews
Stakeholder interviews (business objectives)
prototyping

Question 23

What is requirement gathering

Answer 23

Requirements (Reqs) Gathering is the set of activities performed by a team, in collaboration with their customer and users, that transforms the wishes and needs of stakeholders into actionable requirements for the design delivery and development phases.

Question 24

What is a requirement

Answer 24

input to the design & development phases to create the product.

Question 25

What is an ACTIONABLE requirement?

Answer 25

A requirement is actionable by our design & development team when they can take it, and build the best possible product for the end customer. This means that the requirement must contain all the necessary information and context to allow the people who take it to do great design & development.

Question 26

Difference between taking orders and gathering requirements?

Answer 26

If you want to be a good product manager, understand unmet needs and use that insight to drive requirements. A product manager who just “gathers requirements” is doing nothing more than taking orders or documenting requests. Good product managers add value to their product by understanding the problems and needs behind requests.

Good product managers do not just gather requirements — they understand unmet needs, existing problems, and opportunities for improvement, and they then use that information to determine the requirements for the product.

Question 27

Methods for requirements gathering

Answer 27

Interviews
Event storing
User story mapping

Question 28

Methods for requirements gathering

Answer 28

Interviews
Event storming
User story mapping

Question 29

Should every feature be included in the product roadmap?

Answer 29

Not every feature request should go on the roadmap. It’s important to keep the team focused on creating the most value and saying no to distractions.

Question 30

PRD

Answer 30

Product Requirements Document

The most important artifact that PO can create

The PRD is the source of truth that answers the question WHAT is the team building and WHY, which is incredibly helpful to drive alignment across the team. A PRD is never done and will continue to evolve as the team is working on the problem. It’s the PM’s job to write the PRD and keep it up to date as decisions are made and new information becomes available.

Question 31

What is included in a PRD

Answer 31

PRDs always need to have these components:

frame the problem… and answers the question WHY are we solving it.
outline the goals… both user goals, business goals, and success metrics. This section also helps to explain WHY the problem should be solved.
describe the requirements… WHAT does the product do? Remember, as a PM you are answering WHAT the product does. Design and engineering have to figure out HOW.

Additionally, other components can include:

assumptions
options considered
UI mocks (it can be super helpful to work with design and include these in the PRD because it is often easier to communicate some ideas visually instead of through text)
out of scope
risks & mitigations
support plan