Product management Dossier

Basics of Product management

Hi,

Welcome to the Functional Dossier section for your MBA Admission process!

The contents in this section have been curated by alumni of top business schools like IIM A, C, SP Jain,
and SCMHRD. Few authors have been panellists for top business schools and have formal experience in
taking interviews of the candidates.

The document and content below have been created to help you gain an understanding of the basics of
each specialization for you to be prepared before you enter your top B-schools and will be useful for a
quick walkthrough. Students are advised to go through the entire dossier and be aware of the concepts
and other information provided here. We recommend you read through the topics for greater insights
into the specialization before you opt for one. Hope these add to your preparation and help you in
levelling favours up your game plan in the admission process!

All the best!

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Contents
What is product management? .................................................................................................................. 3
What does a product manager do? ............................................................................................................ 4
Product management roles: The product manager and beyond ............................................................... 5
Product manager v/s project manager: ...................................................................................................... 6
Core Competencies of a Product manager ................................................................................................. 6
Founder/CTO/CEO relationship with PM.................................................................................................. 11
History of product management .............................................................................................................. 11
Product management responsibilities ...................................................................................................... 12
Product manager skills .............................................................................................................................. 13
Product management’s strategic function ............................................................................................... 13
What is the Product Management Process? ............................................................................................ 14
Product Management Jobs ....................................................................................................................... 17
What are the Most Important Product Management Skills? ................................................................... 20
Product Management and Roadmaps ...................................................................................................... 24
Product Management Tools ..................................................................................................................... 26
What are the key aims of product management? .................................................................................... 26
B2B vs. B2C Product Management ........................................................................................................... 27
Optimizing Product Management Operations ......................................................................................... 28
Product Management Meetings ............................................................................................................... 29
Capitalizing on Customer Meetings .......................................................................................................... 29
Agile Product Management Operations ................................................................................................... 30
Product Launch Responsibilities ............................................................................................................... 31
Conclusion: Product Management Strategy ............................................................................................. 32
Envisioning the future of product management ...................................................................................... 33

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

What is product management?

Product management is an organizational function that guides every step of a product’s lifecycle —
from development to positioning and pricing — by focusing on the product and its customers first and
foremost. To build the best possible product, product managers advocate for customers within the
organization and make sure the voice of the market is heard and heeded.

Thanks to this focus on the customer, product teams routinely ship better-designed and higher-
performing products. In tech, where entrenched products are quickly uprooted by newer and better
solutions, there is more need than ever for an intimate understanding of customers and the ability to
create tailored solutions for them. That’s where product management comes in.
Every product has its own goals and challenges which require a unique and customized approach to
product management. Martin Eriksson famously described product management as the intersection of
business, user experience, and technology.

● Business — Product management helps teams achieve their business objectives by bridging the
communication gap between dev, design, the customer, and the business.
● UX — Product management focuses on the user experience, and represents the customer
inside the organization. Great UX is how this focus manifests itself.
● Technology — Product management happens, day to day, in the engineering department. A
thorough understanding of computer science is paramount.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Three additional skills that every PM needs are storytelling, marketing, and empathy.

Storytelling

A product leader should be as inspirational as they are tactical, and storytelling is their tool of choice.
Through customer interviews and market research, product managers learn more about the customer
than even the salespeople. They then use their storytelling skills to share that perspective with the rest
of the company.

Marketing

Product Management’s customer focus also informs marketing efforts. Instead of sticking to the brand
and using established techniques, product management teams (often including Product Marketing
Managers) integrate the language of their customers into the messaging of their product. Furthermore,
knowledge of the competitive landscape and the ability to stand out and differentiate pays dividends in
the long run. Understanding basic marketing and positioning concepts will help product managers ship
products that people can find and relate to.

Empathy

Finally, product management is about empathy — empathy for the developers and how they work,
empathy for the customer and their pain points, and even empathy for upper management, who juggle
aggressive goals and impossible schedules. This skill in empathy, one developed through immersion
within and intimate understanding of each group and stakeholder, separates the product teams that
can rally the organization around common goals from those who are incapable of doing so.

What does a product manager do?

The day-to-day tasks include a wide variety of strategic and tactical duties. Most product managers or
product owners do not take on all these responsibilities. In most companies, at least some of them are
owned by other teams or departments.

But most product professionals spend the majority of their time focused on the following:

● Conducting Research: Researching to gain expertise about the company’s market, user
personas, and competitors.
● Developing Strategy: Shaping the industry knowledge they’ve learned into a high-level strategic
plan for their product—including goals and objectives, a broad-strokes overview of the product
itself, and maybe a rough timeline.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

 ● Communicating Plans: Developing a working strategic plan using a product roadmap and
presenting it to key stakeholders across their organization: executives, investors, development
teams, etc. Ongoing communication across their cross-functional teams throughout the
development process and beyond.
○ Coordinating Development: Assuming they have received a green light to move forward
with their product’s strategic plan, coordinating with the relevant teams—product
marketing, development, etc.—to begin executing the plan.
○
○ Acting on Feedback and Data Analysis: Finally, after building, testing, and introducing
the product to the marketplace, learning via data analysis and soliciting direct feedback
from users, what works, what doesn’t, and what to add. Working with the relevant
teams to incorporate this feedback into future iterations of the product.

Product management roles: The product manager and beyond

In some cases, product management for one product, or family of products, is handled by a single
Product Manager. This individual must represent a deep proficiency in at least one of the areas that
touch product management, and a passion for or fluency in the others. This most often manifests itself
in one of two cases: an experienced business marketer with a passion for outstanding user experience
and can speak fluent tech lingo, or a technical development leader who understands the product so
well that they can begin to drive its creation. These people have proven to be so rare and valuable that
product management now commands the highest salaries in all of tech.

Since it’s really hard to find individuals fluent in both areas, oftentimes product management is
brought to life by a small group of specialists. At Atlassian, we’ve formed the triad — where a leader
from development, design, and business work together to lead product strategy. Supporting the triad
are PMs, PMMs, and many of the other roles below:

● Chief Product Officer (CPO) - Leads the product function at an organizational level. Ensures each
product is looked after by skilled PMs and their teams.
● Product Owner - Takes a more active role in the development of the product by managing the
engineering team’s backlog and their communication with other stakeholders.
● Product Marketing Manager (PMM) - Improves the product team's ability to reach customers
and learn from them through product-tailored marketing campaigns and the insights they
provide.
● User Experience (UX) Researcher - UX is one of a PM’s core responsibilities, but a dedicated UX
researcher, who studies user behavior and makes usability recommendations, is a great
addition to any product team.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Product manager v/s project manager:

Product manager Project manager

Researching Breaking down initiatives into tasks

Setting product vision Planning project timelines

Communicating vision to stakeholders Allocating project resources

Developing strategic plan Monitoring task completion

Creating and maintaining product roadmap Communicating progress to stakeholders

Core Competencies of a Product manager

There are core competencies that every PM must have — many of which can start in the classroom —
but most are developed with experience, good role models, and mentoring. Some examples of these
competencies include:
● Conducting customer interviews and user testing
● Running design sprints
● Feature prioritization and road map planning
● The art of resource allocation (it is not a science!)
● Performing market assessments
● Translating business-to-technical requirements, and vice versa
● Pricing and revenue modeling
● Defining and tracking success metrics

These core competencies are the baseline for any PM, and the best PMs hone these skills over years of
defining, shipping, and iterating on products. These PMs excel at reflecting on where each of these
competencies have contributed to the success or failure of their products and continuously adjusting
their approach based on customer feedback.

Emotional Intelligence

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

A good PM may know the dos and don’ts of a customer interview, but the best PMs have the ability to
empathize with customers in that interview, are tuned into their body language and emotions, and can
astutely suss out the pain points that the product or feature will address. A PM with a high EQ has
strong relationships within their organization and a keen sense of how to navigate both internal and
external hurdles to ship a great product. Here’s a deeper look at how the four key traits of EQ, as
defined by Daniel Goleman, relate to the PM role:

Relationship management

Probably one of the most important characteristics of a great PM is their relationship management
skills. By forming authentic and trustworthy connections with both internal and external stakeholders,
the best PMs inspire people and help them reach their full potential. Relationship management is also
vital in successful negotiation, resolving conflicts, and working with others toward a shared goal, which
is especially challenging when a PM is tasked with balancing the needs of customers, resource-
constrained engineering teams, and the company’s revenue goals. Authentic and trusting relationships
within an organization can lead to more support when additional funding is needed for a product or
when an engineer must be swayed to include a quick bug fix in the next sprint. Outside an
organization, these skills could encourage existing customers to beta test a new feature for early
feedback or to convince a target customer to try the MVP of a product still in stealth mode. These
relationship skills can also be what makes the difference between having irate customers because of a
bug introduced into the product and those who say, “No worries, we know you’ll fix this!”

Six Myths of Product Development

Self-awareness

PMs must be self-aware so as to remain objective and avoid projecting their own preferences onto
users of their products. If a PM is in love with a feature because it addresses their own pain points —
PMs are often super-users of the products for which they are responsible — they may cause a user to
say they love it too, just to please the PM (“false positive feature validation”). If not self-aware, a PM
may push to prioritize a feature they conceived even when all the customer interviews and evidence
are stacked against it. This lack of self-awareness could derail more important priorities or damage the
PM’s relationship with engineers, who may lose confidence in their PM when the feature isn’t readily
adopted by users.

Self-management

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Being a PM can be incredibly stressful. The CEO wants one thing, the engineering team another, and
customers have their own opinions about feature priorities. Managing tight deadlines, revenue targets,
market demands, prioritization conflicts, and resource constraints all at once is not for the faint of
heart. If a PM cannot maintain their emotions and keep it cool under pressure, they can quickly lose
the confidence of all their constituents. The best PMs know how to push hard on the right priorities,
with urgency but without conveying a sense of panic or stress. These PMs also know when to take a
breath and step away to regroup.

Social awareness

According to Goleman, the competencies associated with being socially aware are empathy,
organizational awareness, and service. PMs must understand customers’ emotions and concerns about
their product as much as they understand the concerns of the sales team on how to sell that product,
or the support team on how to support it, or the engineering team on how to build it. PMs have to
have a deep understanding of how the organization operates and must build social capital to influence
the success of their product, from obtaining budget and staffing to securing a top engineer to work on
their product. Finally, social awareness ensures the best PMs service their customers with a product
that addresses their jobs to be done, which is ultimately what drives product-market fit.

Company Fit
If the best PMs have well-developed core competencies and a high EQ, does that mean they are
destined for success no matter where they work? Not necessarily. In fact, taking these skills and
personality traits and applying them to the right company is what will ultimately guarantee success.

I have yet to see a standard job description for a product manager, because each role is ultimately
defined by the size, type of product, stage, industry, and even culture of the company. If you possess
the core competencies and high EQ needed to be a successful PM, the next step is to unpack who’s
hiring and what they are truly looking for.

Here are a few of the key areas in which companies differ in what they want from a PM:

Technical skill

The type of product, who uses it, and the type of company will determine how technical a PM needs to
be. For example, Google requires PMs to pass a technical skills test regardless of what product they’ll
work on. If the company is building a SaaS CRM, there may be more requirements around experience
with go-to-market and customer lifecycles than around how the product is built. By contrast, if it’s a

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

data science product with machine learning algorithms and APIs, the role may require a lot more
technical depth to not only understand how to build the product but also how to talk credibly with the
customers who will use it. That said, having a basic technical understanding of what is under the hood
and mastery of the tools that PMs use is definitely important for the role, anywhere it is.

Company philosophy about PM

Every company has a different philosophy about the product development process and where PMs fit
into that process. Below are the three most common types, with pros and cons:

● PM drives engineering. This is a “throw it over the wall” approach, where PMs gather
requirements, write the quintessential product requirements document, and hand it off to
engineering to spec out the technical requirements. Contemporary organizations may do this
process in a more agile and collaborative way, but the expectation is that PMs know best about
what customers need and engineering is there to serve.
○ Pro: Engineering can focus on coding without a lot of distraction; this tends to work well
for Waterfall development shops with long lifecycles.
○ Con: Engineers lose sight of the big picture and do not develop empathy for customers,
which can lead to a poor user experience. Often there are unhealthy tensions when
technical debt and “plumbing” work needs to be prioritized over customer
requirements.
● Engineering drives product. More technically oriented product companies (cloud, big data,
networking) tend to be engineering-driven, where engineers are advancing the science in their
domain and PMs validate solutions or create front end access points (UIs, APIs) to tap into this
new technology. There can be a collaborative relationship and feedback loop between
customers, PMs, and engineering, but typically PMs are serving engineering in these
companies.
○ Pro: Breakthrough technology can offer customers things they didn’t even know they
needed. VMotion at VMware was a great example of this. An engineer thought it would
be cool to do, a PM figured out how to monetize it, and it became a billion-dollar game
changer for the company.
○ Con: Engineers chase the shiny new thing, over-architect the solution, or iterate forever,
seeking perfection before getting customer feedback. PM input on priorities is ignored,
which sometimes includes the most basic needs of customers.
● The PM-engineering partnership. In these cases, there is a strong yin-yang between PM and
engineering, with joint discovery, decision making, and shared accountability. Engineers join
PMs in customer interviews, and PMs are in sprint meetings to help unblock tasks or clarify
requirements. But the two roles respect the line where one starts and the other stops. PMs

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

 understand what’s being coded but don’t tell engineers how to code, and engineers have
empathy for customers’ needs but leave the prioritization to the PMs.
○ Pro: A streamlined prioritization process that values technical debt and plumbing
projects; better design processes leading to a more positive user experience; higher-
performing teams with improved product velocity, quality, and, typically, happier
customers.
○ Con: Breakthrough innovation may not get greenlit; time-to-market may seem to lag.

Stage of company

The role of the PM at a startup is far more likely to be responsible for “all the things,” whereas at a
mature company their role will be more distinctly defined.

● Startup. Beyond discovery, definition, and shipping, PMs may also be responsible for pricing,
marketing, support, and potentially even sales of the product. These PMs thrive in a scrappy
environment and are comfortable with ambiguity and frequent changes to direction as the
company works towards product-market fit and learns to operate at scale.
○ Pro: PMs are likely to be more involved with company strategy, get exposure to senior
leadership and the board, are able to take more risks and make a bigger impact. They
also have more influence and authority over company resources.
○ Con: There’s typically little to no mentorship, role models, or best practices within the
company. (You may have to seek it externally.) Budgets are typically tight, and PMs may
not have the requisite experience to succeed at some of the things they’re tasked to do.
● Mature company. The PM may have a narrower scope and have coworkers who handle pricing,
go-to-market strategies, and so on. And they are likely to be part of a larger team of product
managers.
○ Pro: PMs are more likely to have mentoring and role models, as well as development
standards and best practices. Close association with an engineering team can create
strong relationships over time, which is great for long-term impact and career growth.
And if the product has market fit, there is an established customer base and
performance baseline to work from, versus guessing until you get it right.
○ Con: PMs have less exposure to company strategy and are just one of many voices of
the customer. They can get “lost” in the system and have to deal with more politics and
tight budgets.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Founder/CTO/CEO relationship with PM
Especially in earlier-stage companies, it’s important to know how involved the founder/CEO/CTO is in
the product process. If they are deeply involved, the PM role may play more of a support role, to flesh
out their ideas or validate concepts with customers, versus conceiving and driving ideas of their own.
This can be great fun for some PMs who enjoy partnering with founders and C-level executives and
collaborating on the product evolution. But for other PMs, it can be very frustrating if they prefer to
take more ownership of the product direction. It can also be challenging if the more technical founders
or C-levels prefer working directly with engineers. This can leave PMs out of the loop or undermined,
causing not just personal frustrations but delays. When considering a PM role that may work closely
with the founding leadership team, be sure to find out their expectations of the PM function and
decide whether this is the right fit with your interests.

History of product management

The role of product management was originally created as a brand management position. It was first
defined in the U.S. during the Great Depression. In 1931, advertising manager Neil McElroy wrote a
memo to colleagues at Proctor & Gamble (P&G). The young advertising executive proposed the idea of
a "brand man" — a role with specific responsibilities to manage the entirety of a product's brand and
be accountable for its success.

This concept of product ownership is at the core of product management today. McElroy spoke about
product owners within a marketing context. He wanted brand managers to "take full responsibility, not
simply for criticizing individual pieces of printed word copy, but also for the general printed word plans
for his brands."

McElroy's memo struck a nerve. Over the next half-century, many companies adopted a brand
management approach. This practice came to be known as consumer product management, and many
of the same principles were adopted by the software market as it grew during the 1980s. McElroy
followed his work at P&G — where he became president — with positions as president at Harvard
University and advisor at Stanford University.

Over time, the organizational benefit of the product owner became so coveted that many brand
managers were recruited by technology firms. These emerging companies wanted to leverage the deep
product knowledge and sense of ownership that the role held. Many brand managers went on to
become entrepreneurs and product leaders.

For example, Scott Cook was a brand manager at P&G before founding Intuit in 1983. The roles of
brand manager and company founder are quite different. But Cook's background in brand

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

management — focused on understanding, delivering, and polishing user experience — was
paramount to Intuit's success.

As technology advanced in the 1990s, gaps between engineering and brand management widened.
Companies like Microsoft were rapidly expanding but faced challenges as they scaled software
development. Engineers did not have processes to keep up with customers' demands and concerns.
They also did not have time to collaborate with the sales and marketing teams responsible for revenue
growth. Product managers and product leaders began to bridge the gap between teams.
"Good product managers take full responsibility and measure themselves in terms of the success of the
product." These words from the classic Ben Horowitz and David Weiden memo "Good Product
Manager/Bad Product Manager" epitomize product management and what companies continue to
expect from their product leaders today.

Product management responsibilities

Product managers have both internal and external product management responsibilities. Internal
product management involves gathering customer research, competitive intelligence, and industry
trends — as well as setting strategy and managing the product roadmap. External product
management includes product marketing responsibilities, such as messaging and branding, customer
communication, new product launches, advertising, PR, and events.

Product strategy and roadmap planning (Internal)

● Strategy and vision

● Customer interviews
● Defining features and requirements
● Building product roadmaps
● Release management
● Go-to resource for the development team
● Sales and support training

Product marketing and go-to-market activities (External)

● Competitive differentiation
● Positioning and messaging
● Naming and branding
● Customer communication
● Product launches
● Press and analyst relations

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

It is important to note that product managers are responsible for these activities at every stage of the
product lifecycle — product development, launch, growth, maturity, and decline.

Product manager skills

Product managers need a wide variety of skills to be successful. The best product managers are
curious, thoughtful, and organized. A relentless focus on customer needs helps you fix strategic
problems. Each day, product managers work hard to align and drive action. You need a variety of skills
to do this successfully, including working with UX designers to build wireframes and mockups so the
scope of a feature is clear.

Some of the most important product management skills include:

● Analytical skills
● Communication
● Empathy
● Financial skills
● Leadership
● Presentation skills
● Project management
● Research
● Strategic thinking
● Technical skills (methodologies, processes, and tools)

Product management’s strategic function

Product management is a strategic function. Tasking product managers with determining a product’s
overall reason for being—the product’s “Why?”

They’re also responsible for communicating product objectives and plans for the rest of the company.
They must ensure everyone is working toward a shared organizational goal.

Product management encompasses a broad set of ongoing strategic responsibilities. They shouldn’t be
responsible for the ground-level details of the development process.

Smart organizations separate this function and assign tactical elements to project managers, such as
scheduling and managing workloads. This distinct division leaves the product manager free to focus on
the higher-level strategy.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

What is the Product Management Process?
There is no single “right” way to manage a product. Processes will evolve and adapt to the
organization, the product lifecycle stage, and product team members’ and executives’ personal
preferences.

But the discipline has developed some consensus regarding best practices. So, while rigid adherence
isn’t required and there isn’t the same level of zealotry as one might find when discussing Agile, the
basic tenets are widely accepted.

Defining the problem

It all begins with identifying a high-value customer pain point. After that, people or organizations are
trying to do something, and they can’t. Or, if they can, it’s expensive or time-consuming or resource-
intensive or inefficient or just unpleasant.

Whether it’s moving a person or thing from Point A to Point B, finding the perfect gift, reaching the
right audience, keeping people entertained, or some other objective, what’s currently available isn’t
quite cutting it. People want something better or something they don’t have at all.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Product management turns these abstract complaints, wants, and wishes into a problem statement
looking for a solution. Solving that problem and easing that pain is the spark and motivation for
everything that comes next. Without a clearly articulated goal that directly impacts that pain point,
there’s not much hope that the product will gain any real traction or staying power.

Quantifying the opportunity

There are many problems and pain points out there, but not all are worth solving. This is when product
managers swap their customer-centric hats for a business one.

To justify investment in building a new product or solution, product management must answer the
following questions and be able to build a business case based on the answers they find:

● What is the total addressable market?

● Is the problem or pain severe enough people will actually consider alternative solutions?
● Are they willing to pay for an alternative solution (or is there another way to monetize the
solution)?

Once product management has evaluated the potential market, they can then set about trying to
address it if there’s a large enough opportunity.

Researching potential solutions

With a target in mind, product management can now fully investigate how they might solve customer
problems and pain points. They should cast a large net of possible solutions and not rule anything out
too quickly. For example, suppose the organization already has some proprietary technology or IP or a
particular area of expertise to give the company an advantage. In that case, those potential solutions
will likely leverage that in some way.

However, this does not mean that product managers should start drafting requirements and engaging
the product development team just yet. They’ll first want to validate those candidates with the target
market, although it is prudent to bounce some of these ideas off the technical team to ensure they’re
at least feasible. Product management will often develop personas to see whether there’s actual
interest among those cohorts using any of the table’s ideas.

Skipping this step and jumping right into building something can be a fatal flaw or cause severe delays.
While there are no guarantees, getting confirmation from potential customers that the idea is
something they’ll want, use, and pay for is a critical gate in the overall process and achieving product-
market fit.

Building an MVP

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

After validating a particular solution’s appeal and viability, it’s now time to engage the product
development team in earnest. First, the bare minimum set of functionalities should be defined, and
then the team can build a working version of the product that can be field-tested with actual users.

Many bells and whistles will intentionally be excluded from the Minimum Viable Product, as the goal is
to ensure the core functionality meets the market’s needs. Nice-to-haves can wait for a later stage in
the product lifecycle since there’s little point in expending additional resources on an unproven
product.

MVPs can test both how the product works and the overall messaging and positioning of the value
proposition in conjunction with product marketing. The key is finding out whether this nascent product
is something the market wants and if it adequately meets their core requirements.

Creating a feedback loop

While customer feedback is essential throughout a product’s life, there’s no time more critical than
during the MVP introduction. This is where the product management team can learn what customers
really think, need, and dislike since they’re reacting to an actual product experience and not just
theoretical ideas tossed out in a conversation.

Product management must make it easy for customers to provide feedback and create frequent
prompts soliciting it. But, just as importantly, they must process, synthesize, and react to this feedback,
turning this input into actionable ideas that make their way into the product roadmap or backlog.

And, not to be forgotten, product management must also establish a method for closing the loop with
customers, so they know their complaints and suggestions were heard and, when applicable, have
been addressed.

Setting the strategy

Assuming the MVP is well received, it’s time to really invest in a product strategy. The team now knows
they’re onto something that can get some traction, so goals and objectives must be established to
improve the product, get it to market, expand its reach, and align with the overall company strategy
and desired outcomes.

The strategy should be based on reasonable, incremental progress toward achievable goals, with key
performance indicators and other metrics defined to evaluate success. These measurables should track
with the organization’s general objectives and complement what the company already does well
(assuming it’s not a startup still in its infancy).

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

More than anything else, the strategy is where product management must secure stakeholder
alignment and buy-in. If there’s no solid, common understanding of this fundamental element of the
product, then the groundwork is already being laid for future conflicts and disagreements.

Driving execution
With a viable product concept, a scalable feedback management system, and a sound strategy, it’s
time to get to work turning ideas into reality. This means prioritizing potential development items and
plotting out the product roadmap.

Product management can utilize various prioritization frameworks to decide which development
activities will help the product meet its most important goals quickly and efficiently, cueing things up
for near-term work. Of course, everything can’t be first, so basing these decisions on which items have
the greatest impact on critical objectives is key, including representatives from across the organization.
With the initial priorities set, product management can then build out their product roadmap. This
powerful tool enables stakeholders to easily visualize what’s on the horizon and why it’s relevant to
the strategy, particularly if structured around themes and outcomes versus specific features and
delivery dates.

The People of Product Management

Product management doesn’t have too many subspecialties, primarily because product people are
expected to do a little bit of everything. However, there is some variety within this career, along with
expected tiers of seniority and additional responsibility.

First, some jobs often get lumped in with product that doesn’t belong there. This includes project
management, program management, and product marketing, as well as scrum masters.

Each of those critical roles interfaces with the product management team quite a bit. Some
organizations may even arrange some of those jobs into the same groups, such as making product
management and product marketing part of the overall marketing organization. But these positions
aren’t product management jobs, as they don’t actively define what is in the product or report to the
people who do.

Product Management Jobs

The ideal product management job is—unsurprisingly—being a product manager. A product manager
will usually own one or more products or a horizontal function across multiple products, such as “user
experience” or “e-commerce.”

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

There are associate product managers and junior product managers who are typically new to the
domain and have more limited responsibilities. A senior product manager will have a little more
seasoning and broader scope to their role. But these are essentially slightly different flavors of your
basic product manager.

Technical product managers are another critical variation on the role. These individuals are often
transitioning from a role in the engineering or IT teams and tasked with managing aspects of one or
more products requiring a deeper understanding of technical issues, such as infrastructure and APIs.

Agile product managers

In an Agile organization, product owners also may be part of the puzzle. While there’s some debate,
product owners are often considered part of product management, but they are distinct from product
managers. A product owner will be embedded in one or more scrum teams, but their focus is mainly
tactical, helping ensure the strategy laid out by product managers is appropriately executed.

As one moves up through the ranks, there are more senior product management roles with more
significant distinctions. For example, a product line manager will own multiple products that are
typically related to each other, sometimes overseeing individual contributor product managers that
manage a single product or sub-component.

The Product Executive Track

The executive track begins with Director and Senior Director roles. Depending on the company’s size,
this may be a loftier title for a “lone wolf” product management professional. But, on the other hand, it
may indicate an even broader portfolio of products and the corresponding direct reports to support
that.

Vice President and Senior Vice President are similar escalations up the corporate ladder. Those holding
these jobs may see more diversity on their staff as they may also end up owning business analysts, UX,
product marketing, or other related functions. The apex for a product management career is Chief
Product Officer. Although not as common, this increasingly seen role elevates product management to
the C-suite. It gives product the same political weight as Engineering or Marketing, which is often
indicative of an organization committed to product-led growth. A CPO is typically supported by a larger

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

team and provides more directional guidance and coaching than diving into the nitty-gritty details of
particular products.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

What are the Most Important Product Management Skills?
With a shared understanding of product management’s scope, we can dig into what it takes to be a
product manager. Product managers find their way by following the paths of those who came before
them. And those more experienced in the profession have plenty of lessons to offer their peers and
newcomers.

You can’t get a degree in product management. There’s no single career path to get there. It’s more
about the skills required to do the job well than a particular pedigree. Here are some of the key hard
skills in product management.

Communication
Communication skills leap to the top of the list when considering what it takes to be a successful
product manager. So many aspects of the job rely on prowess in this domain.

To solicit and gather feedback, product managers need to be great listeners. They must also know how
to work those relationships and exhibit significant customer empathy.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Of course, customers aren’t the only source of input to the prioritization process. Product managers
must also work with various stakeholders to understand their goals and needs.

After that, product managers must succinctly convey the product’s mission. It should be a synthesis of
all those inputs turned into something easily consumable that others can be inspired by.

Evangelizing and alignment

With vision, goals, and the roadmap defined, product managers must socialize and evangelize these
pillars of the product to the entire organization. It’s all about creating alignment, generating buy-in,
and getting the whole company on the same page, including leveraging public forums such as all-hands
meetings, as well as smaller forums and one-on-one sessions.

Once the product plans begin taking shape, product managers must work extensively with the product
development organization. This collaboration includes engineers along well with product managers,
architects, and quality assurance teams.

Collaboration
To create a fantastic user experience, product managers must also collaborate with UX designers.
Nurturing a true partnership and not being merely transactional is key to delivering exceptional
products.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Finally, as the product gets ready to launch, there’s another round of communication and coordination.
Product management must educate and edit marketing plans for the product. They also must provide
the sales team with the necessary training and talking points they’ll need.

Technical skills
There may be no debate quite as polarizing in the product management community as this subject.
Just how technical must a product manager be? Will non-technical product managers become extinct?

There’s no debating that a product manager must have some level of technical understanding. Luddites
don’t make great product managers, at least not for software products.

Product managers must be conversant enough in the fundamentals for meaningful dialogue with
engineering. They must understand if they’re creating a massive amount of technical debt with their
decisions and managing down existing debt. And they should probably be knowledgeable enough to
use their product and relate to the customers it’s intended to serve.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

However, there’s no rule that product managers must know how to code or run an SQL query on a
database. While those might be practical skills, a product manager won’t be doing those things daily.

And in organizations where there is an actual need for product managers with in-depth technical
know-how, they can always hire a technical product manager to fill that role.

Business savvy
When product managers dub themselves the “CEO of the product,” they’re generally referring to this
category of skills. Product managers may or may not carry responsibility for a product’s revenue. But
they’re integral to making sure the product is financially and strategically successful.

It starts by defining a vision and goals for the product. While these may come from the founder or
executive team, product management must own them once established. Then, translating those
abstract ideas into the tactics required to make them a reality is all part of the job.

Other duties, such as finding product-market fit and assessing requests from customers and prospects,
also require keen business smarts.

To do so, product managers must think strategically, even when dealing with minutiae. No choice is
inconsequential. They must dynamically consider all possible repercussions to avoid negative impacts
on the customer experience or sales.

And then there are the numbers. Product managers must be conversant in the metrics that matter.
They must use data-driven decision-making to propel the product forward. Growth, revenue, and
profitability all fall under product management’s purview, even if they’re not directly responsible for
them.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Product Management and Roadmaps
We might be a bit biased, but there’s no single aspect of product management as pivotal as a product
roadmap. It’s the culmination of countless hours of research, negotiations, strategizing, and consensus-
building.

Product roadmaps set the agenda and set expectations for the entire organization. They set a course
for the future and provides a point of reference to inspire the whole organization. They turn the
mission and vision into a concrete plan for making grand ideas a reality.

But what’s on the roadmap is only half the battle. The other part is figuring out what kind of roadmap
makes the most sense for the audience, the product’s maturity, and the timeframe it covers. One size
does not fit all (although one tool can help you with every kind of roadmap you might want to create).

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

 The first step is prioritizing the various initiatives and features using a prioritization framework. Define
the parameters of your roadmap. Will it be feature-less? Based on themes?

Setting the ground rules for the roadmap’s scope and level of detail are the hard part. Plugging in
everything is easy. Then it’s time to rely on those communication skills and showcase the final product.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Product Management Tools
Historically, most product managers simply used a combination of spreadsheets, presentations, and
text documents to communicate their product strategy and roadmap. These tools are easily available
and typically included in any company's suite of applications. But as the discipline evolved, it became
clear there was a need for purpose-built product management tools. Now, cloud-based applications
and SaaS tools make it possible to set strategy, manage releases, define features, build visual product
roadmaps, and capture customer feedback in a single source of truth. These tools can also support
teams that want to implement modern methodologies like agile product management.

What are the key aims of product management?

The 3 fundamental aims of product management are:

1. Build once, sell many times – this gets the economies of scale that result in higher profitability

2. Being an expert on the market as well as the product – this makes sure you build products that
customers will buy

3. Lead within the business – with a balanced view across all the different aspects of the product

Product managers have more options than ever when it comes to tools. They cover a wide range of
tasks and areas that product managers are responsible for.

But a product manager’s job involves a lot more than gather product insight, tracking the backlog, and
reviewing the product roadmap. Whether you’re a new product manager or a seasoned PM just
wanting to make sure you’re not missing a key component of your role because you’re lacking the
proper tool—the following is a list of product management tools to help you excel in your role.

These include solutions for tracking user behavior, including heat mapping and session replays. Plus,
there are surveying tools for gathering feedback. There are also a host of new options for
collaboration. It encompasses asynchronous messaging, voice chats, file sharing, and document
editing.

For demos, presentations, and onboarding, product managers can turn to web conferencing tools that
support screen sharing and recording. These can also be co-opted for low-budget usability testing, as
product managers can “ride-along” while users complete tasks using their products. Quickly visualize
concepts and workflows with wireframe tools and flowcharts.

Project management tools have also made a massive impact on how product managers keep track of
things. There’s no excuse to be managing your life and projects in a spreadsheet.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

And, of course, there’s a pretty good tool for creating roadmaps we’re quite fond of. By relying on
some of these solutions, product managers can increase their efficiency, become better collaborators,
and make sure nothing falls through the cracks. Roadmapping software is a must-have item on any list
of product management tools. Using any non-native roadmap application to draft and maintain your
product roadmap (such as spreadsheets or slide decks) will create far more work, be far less flexible
and easy to share, and more prone to version-control issues that can slow your product’s progress. This
is exactly why we built ProductPlan.

Asking for a tools budget

Product managers shouldn’t be shy about asking for a tools budget; their time is just as valuable as
other contributors. Requesting budgets for a tool is still a relatively rare occurrence for product teams,
who traditionally haven’t had any dedicated budget and rarely ask for anything financial other than
approving travel expenses or a new laptop. So, how do you successfully broach this subject with the
executives holding the purse strings?

1. Make assumptions

2. Strength in numbers

3. Acknowledge the alternatives

4. Try the free-trial

5. Overcome the uncomfortable ask

B2B vs. B2C Product Management

One common belief in product management is that there is a vast difference between working on B2B
and B2C products. While there are certainly some distinct aspects between those two worlds, they
have plenty in common.

For B2C, your users are generally also your buyers, and you’re serving a single persona. For B2B, the
person controlling the budget is often unrelated to the person who regularly uses the product. After
identifying each persona, product managers can tailor the product and the pitch for each one of them.

Both situations require multiple value propositions. Even single consumers are looking for numerous
reasons to buy and use a product. Therefore, messaging should always speak to practical, emotional,
and financial justifications for taking the plunge.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

It impacts the sales process, as B2B sales take a lot more convincing and win over many hearts and
minds for a single transaction. And the cost of acquisition will be higher, and the growth rate slower for
a B2B product.

But with proper expectations, there’s no reason the same skills and experiences can’t be transposed
from one market to another. Product managers shouldn’t feel pigeonholed into only working in one
market or the other. It just might take a little more convincing during the hiring process to shake them
out of their false preconceptions.

Optimizing Product Management Operations

Product managers have an often-overwhelming number of obligations. Time is a precious commodity.
They must be efficient and organized to conduct the necessary conversations and meetings while still
having enough bandwidth actually to get some work done.

Process around decisions

Making decisions—and getting internal consensus on those decisions—can be a huge time suck. To get
through them all promptly, product managers must find a scalable way to get to an agreement quickly.
Clearly defined roles and a consistent process let the parties involved focus on the subject at hand.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

A divide-and-conquer approach is another tactic for getting more done in less time. Recognizing the
core strengths of everyone available, splitting up tasks, and delegating things lets product managers
focus on what they do best while not neglecting anything else that’s important.

Product managers can also borrow some useful skills from their project management counterparts.
This includes defining explicit scopes and sticking to them, cutting down on diversions and ratholes. It’s
additionally helpful to create clear action plans and communicate them to relevant colleagues to be
sure everyone knows what they’re responsible for and understand the expectations.

Even how product managers schedule their day can lead to increased output and higher-quality
working sessions. By minimizing context switching, product managers can cluster similar tasks together
to maintain focus and limit distractions.

This includes making time for strategic thinking. It’s tough to take a deep dive into a particular subject
when there are constant interruptions. Product managers must carve out time for this critical task and
create an environment where they can concentrate.

Product Management Meetings

Meetings are unavoidable for product managers. They have the potential to offer tons of value. But
when mismanaged, they can turn unproductive and suck up time they don’t have to spare.

Among our meeting tips for product managers, the focus is on efficiency. Whether it’s limiting
attendance or defining a narrow scope, the goal is to have a purpose, stick to the plan and get it over
with as fast as possible.

Follow-through is also essential. Product managers should take notes, circulate key information, and
clarify any action items before everyone leaves. Of course, the best advice might be skipping the
meeting altogether if it proves to be more distracting than beneficial.

Capitalizing on Customer Meetings

While internal meetings may seem like a chore, meeting with customers is one of the best parts of the
job. It’s an opportunity to capture an unfiltered influx of feedback, ideas, and inspiration that can help
product managers power through the less-than-awesome aspects of the situation.

Meeting directly with customers is always preferable to relying on coworkers in sales or support to
funnel information back to the product team. Of course, this may not always be possible, but product
managers should seize these opportunities when they arise.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

While sales and support might bring back valuable tidbits, they’re conducting conversations with
customers through the lens of their particular jobs. The sales team is trying to gin up more business;
support aims to solve the customer’s problems and move on quickly.

As a product manager, the only goal is to understand the customer better so the product experience
can be improved and enhanced. These conversations can yield invaluable context for using the product
and where they’re encountering challenges. Product managers should also take some worthwhile
detours to explore other ancillary opportunities where the product could potentially be even more
valuable or helpful to users.

Product management needs an established process for handling this feedback. First, ideas worth
pursuing must be captured and tracked. Whether they’re eventually slotted into a release or discarded,
customers who provided suggestions should be informed either way. This follow-up will encourage
future feedback, and it shows customers their input is appreciated.

And while it may not always be pleasant, it’s also great to have conversations with ex-customers. Using
“exit interviews” to collect churn feedback can shine a spotlight on key product flaws or shortcomings
that might cause other users to call it quits. It may also uncover disconnects in product-market fit or
pricing that motivate some customers to abandon the product.

Agile Product Management Operations

Agile has been around for a while in the product development world. However, Agile Transformation is
a newer concept that brings the dynamic, nimble, responsive qualities of Agile to the entire
organization.

One permutation of this approach is the concept of product squads. Pioneered by Spotify, they are
autonomous teams with a group of developers and one product owner. Assigned to a particular
functional area of the product, they’re able to attack the challenge freely. As a result, they can rapidly
deliver value to the market while building in-house expertise on the subject.

Product squads may or may not make sense for a particular company or product. But they’re a great
example of how product teams can reconfigure themselves to respond to opportunities more
dynamically. Freed up from bureaucratic oversight, ad hoc or permanent groups can take ownership
and drive rapid innovation.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Product Launch Responsibilities
After the product ships, product managers don’t get to kick up their heels and relax. There’s still plenty
of work to be done.

Before the dust settles

Quickly following a launch, product managers should lead a product retrospective session. This post-
mortem meeting looks back on how the release went. It ensures lessons are captured and brought
forward to improve things the next time around.

These aren’t just sessions for finger-pointing and blaming others for what went wrong. Instead, it’s an
opportunity to offer praise, recognize good work, and collaboratively identify best practices and the
areas needing improvement.

As things mature
While everyone’s always excited about version 1.0, a product’s lifespan will include many ups and
downs along the way. Likewise, the role of product management also evolves as a product matures
and travels through the various phases of its lifecycle.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Before launch, subject matter expertise was the priority for product managers. So they’re trying to
learn as much as they can from as many sources as possible. In addition, they’re prioritizing features
for the MVP to make sure they’re delivering something with real benefits to the market.

After the initial launch, the focus quickly shifts to growth. Product management worries about scale
while adding functionality that continues to propel growth.

Once all those new users are onboard, the emphasis transitions to retention. It’s all about what’s
required to keep customers happy and minimize churn.

Most products inevitably begin to decline in usage, which presents new challenges. Product managers
must consider how the product can be repurposed, extended, or pivoted toward new verticals. This
maximizes the company’s value for an asset they’ve invested time, effort, and dollars into over the
years.

Final farewells
Sadly, sometimes it’s time to say a final goodbye to a product. Product managers don’t get to skip out
on the tasks related to the end-of-life process, either. They must take the lead, bringing the same
consideration they spent on the product’s birth and subsequent iterations.

A proper shutdown requires extreme attention to detail. Product managers must map out all possible
ramifications that may arise from pulling the plug. From contractual and financial obligations to data
portability and migration assistance — there’s plenty to juggle.

Most important of all is how the event is communicated. Customers must be handled carefully
(particularly if you want to retain their business with other products). Stakeholders, customer service,
strategic partners, and sales all require education, talking points, and escalation plans.

Conclusion: Product Management Strategy

Product Management role is all about strategy. First, product managers develop the product’s strategy
and persuasively communicate it. Then they ensure all decisions concerning development, marketing,
etc., reflect and support the strategy.

If you are interested in what makes a competent, successful product management professional, read
the “Five Traits a Successful Product Manager Needs” section on our What is a Product Manager’s Job?
page. Also, check out our ultimate guide to resources for product professionals to help you in your
career development with all the best books, podcasts, and conferences our team recommends. Curious
to learn the trends of product management in the upcoming year?

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

Envisioning the future of product management
Product management is a multidisciplinary pursuit that is as elusive as it is dead simple. Product
managers gain empathy for the customer, and communicate their needs to the broader organization.
They work most closely with development teams, but also need to get buy in from marketing, design,
and management. Their special sauce is the ability to understand and communicate with a wide variety
of people who speak different languages.

CATKing IIM WAT PI Schedule 2021-22

Day Topic Time
Monday Marketing Mondays 9 to 10 pm
Tuesday Current Affair | Industry Insights (GD/WAT) 9 to 10 pm
Wednesday How to Crack Case Study / SOP 9 to 10 pm
Thursday How to Crack Interviews with Rahul Sir 9 to 10 pm
Friday Finance Fridays 9 to 10 pm
Saturday Personal Interview Must Do Questions with Rahul Sir 9 to 10 pm
Sunday Concept Builders: GD / WAT 9 to 10 pm

For More Details about the CATKing IIM WAT PI Preparation course with IIM A, B, C, L, SPJIMR Mentors,
Contact 8999-11-8999 or Visit: https://www.courses.catking.in/iim-wat-pi-courses/

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in
For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in
For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in
For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in
For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in
 Legal Disclaimer

The content on all of the pages is a consolidation of concepts from various sources. We try our
best to help our students succeed in an interview. However, the information is not applicable in every
case and the advice may, as well as not, work for you in the interview.

Taking this into account, all information is for general information purposes only. We make no
representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied, about the completeness, accuracy,
reliability, suitability or availability with respect to the information or related graphics contained for any
purpose. Any reliance you place on such information is therefore strictly at your own risk.

In no event will we be liable for any losses or damage including without limitation, indirect or
consequential loss or damage, or any loss or damage whatsoever arising from loss of data or profits
arising out of, or in connection with, the use of this information. The use is strictly at your own risk.

Information given can link also to other pages and websites, that are not under our control. We have no
control over the nature, content and availability of those websites. The inclusion of their content
does not necessarily imply a recommendation or endorse the views expressed within them.

Our website is hosted with high quality hosting provider and we try to keep it up and running most of the
time, using two servers for back it up. However, we take no responsibility for, and will not be liable for,
the website being temporarily unavailable due to technical issues beyond our control.

For GDPI preparation, visit courses.catking.in | 8999118999 | www.catking.in