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29 Mar 14
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19 Jun 13
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While the role of a PM varies widely depending on the company, there are several key responsibilities that product managers usually undertake at a vast majority of successful high-tech companies - based on my own experiences as well as conversations with friends in the industry. I've grouped them into the following six categories:
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Market Research:
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culminates with the PM preparing a business case, product strategy and/or business requirements document (BRD) detailing how to capitalize on the uncovered opportunities.
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Product Definition and Design:
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Product Definition refers to the activities of specifying what a product needs to do.
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This document may include information such as product vision, target market, competitive summary, detailed description of product features, prioritization of features, use cases, system requirements, performance requirements, sales and support requirements, etc.
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Product Design refers to the activities of specifying the look and feel of the product including the user interface (UI) and the user interaction with the product - covering the whole spectrum of user experience.
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Project Management:
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This refers to the activities of leading cross-functional teams including engineering, QA, UI design, marketing, sales and support to develop and launch the product on-time and on-budget. This may include securing resources, creating project timelines, tracking progress against timeline, identifying critical paths, getting additional resources when needed, and communicating status to the executive team.
In larger companies, Project Managers actually perform most of these activities with the support of PM's.
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Evangelizing the Product:
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This includes the activities of communicating the product benefits, features and target markets, and in general championing the product to internal teams such as sales, marketing, support and executives.
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In larger companies, the PM is supported by the Product Marketing, Marketing Communications (MarCom) and/or Press Relations (PR) teams in evangelizing to external audience.
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Product Marketing:
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This refers to the activities of outbound messaging - telling the world about the product. This includes creating collateral such as datasheets, brochures, website, flash presentations, press packages, trade shows and more.
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In larger companies, the product marketing activities are almost always separated from the PM. They're instead performed by the Product Marketing Manager. The biggest shortcoming of this arrangement is the resultant inefficiencies in communication and the weakening of outbound messaging.
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In companies where there are separate 'Product Management' and 'Product Marketing' groups, the latter group performs all the activities mentioned in this category.
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Product Life Cycle Management:
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This refers to the activities of managing a product as it goes through its life cycle from ideation to launch to growth to maturity, and eventually to decline.
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This includes tasks such as product positioning, pricing and promotion, product portfolio management, competitive strategy, making build/buy/partner decisions, and identifying and developing partnerships.
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When I worked at Microsoft in Redmond, "Program Managers" created the specs and drove the schedules (this is 2 and 3 in your list), and "Product Managers" did the activities you listed under 'Product Marketing' and 'Product Life Cycle Management'.
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24 Sep 11
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17 Aug 09
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17 Jul 09
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09 Apr 09
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29 Jul 08
yiah12Market Research Product Definition and Design Project Management Product Marketing Product Life Cycle Management
marketing research design article Product blog market Management career blogs project Development and productmanagement pm Definition Life Cycle shortcut:jamba-friday
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05 Apr 08
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26 Dec 07
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I think your classifications make sense overall, good job. I agree that defining features and prioritizing them should be the #1 job of a PM. If this job is not done well, it almost doesn't matter how good the other teams are. The product can't be a success if it is loaded with the wrong features.
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1) Inbound vs outbound
2) Product management vs Product marketing management
3) MRD vs. PRD
4) Design vs. Build
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26 Nov 07
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12 Nov 07
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06 Nov 07
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20 Mar 07
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12 Mar 07
paulcowlesseveral key responsibilities that product managers usually undertake at a vast majority of successful high-tech companies
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