The Product Management Fundamentals: Main Stages The Product Management Fundamentals: Main Stages
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The Product Management Fundamentals: Main Stages

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Product Development
19 Jan 2024
12 min read
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To create an IT product, clothing, yogurt, or fitness service, you need to understand the fundamentals of product management. This involves many nuances. Studying the customer’s pain points, identifying and testing the product, and considering business indicators and customer experience. Let’s talk about those product management basics & product development services.

Modern Product Management Fundamentals & Stages You May Not Know
Fundamental illustrations from Fireart

What is product management?

According to the Atlassian Agile Coach, product management is an organizational function that regulates each stage of the product life cycle. It includes everything – from development to positioning and pricing. The focus is on the product and customer interests. Product managers represent the client’s interests in the organization. They ensure the market situation is fully taken into account. The end objective is to create the best possible product.

Why is product management important?

The importance of product management is astounding. Fundamentals of product management are significant. They are essential because they help the rest of the organization understand the value of a product it produces. Knowing how to turn a product into revenue is as important as knowing what will sell. And it may do that by understanding the customer and the role in a product cycle.

Product management fundamentals

The two basic product management insights may be characterized by the following:

  1. Maximize  Mission Impact:
    You can maximize the mission statement’s influence on your organization. It is important to develop a product strategy that aligns with the organization’s mission and utilizes a set of inputs.
  2. Get it done through others:
    Product managers don’t directly create or manage a product. Instead, they let others do it better and constantly improve the process.

In fact, these two principles represent the left and right hemispheres of your brain, where the left is defined by logic, research, and rigor. The left one represents creativity, intuition, and empathy. Via product management fundamentals, you synchronize their work and the impact on the process results.

Product team structure

Team management is the ultimate part of taking the product from ideation to fruition. Here’s what product team structure definition as per Definition.com:

It’s the structure that involves specialists and functional managers to a new product, process, or project team that has the authority to make significant decisions about their product. Team members are involved in most cases permanently.

Typical roles include product managers, designers, engineers, quality assurance specialists, and marketers. The team may also involve customer support, sales, and other stakeholders depending on the product and company structure.

Here’s an example of a triad team structure often applied for product design management:

triad team structure
Source: Atlassian

The triad structure is a specific type of product team composition that focuses on the collaboration of three key roles:

  • the Product Manager (PM), 
  • the Designer, and 
  • the Engineer.

The triad structure in product teams brings together the essential elements of strategy, design, and technology. It leads to more efficient product development. This approach aligns closely with agile methodologies. It is particularly well-suited to customer-centric product development environments.

Role of a product manager

As Atlassian says, ‘A product manager is a person who identifies the customers’ needs and the bigger business objectives that a product, service, or feature will fulfill, articulates what success looks like for a product, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality.’

By focusing on the customer, product teams deliver products with better design and improved performance. In the era of technology, new and more advanced solutions quickly replace mature products. It is vital to be able to feel the needs of the client and create solutions specifically for them. This is the job of product management.

The role of leadership is to transform the complex situation into small pieces and prioritize them.

​– Carlos Ghosn

Product management stages

Achieving goals through others is the unbreakable fundamental of product management. To explore it better, let’s try to pass it over to the main product management stages. The product management lifecycle consists of research, analysis, and development. Let’s look closer at each. 

Research

To make the right decision, you need to gather quality data from actual customers. It helps you understand and use the market research and the audience experience. Competitive analysis is part of digital product management modern fundamentals. In it, product managers gather information about customer needs and market drivers. Based on this, they make segmentation and other marketing and sales activities.

  • Market research involves gathering quantitative and qualitative data. This is needed to understand market trends, customer needs, and the competitive environment. Techniques like surveys, focus groups, and market segmentation help gain insights into what customers really want and need.
  • Competitive analysis is one of the methods of market research. It focuses on understanding competitors’ strengths and weaknesses. It involves analyzing their products, market position, pricing, and strategies. This information helps in identifying market gaps and opportunities for differentiation.
  • Customer feedback and insights are gathered through interviews, feedback on existing products, or observing customer behavior. This direct interaction provides an invaluable peek into customer pain points and expectations.

Analysis

Process analysis makes the middle of the fundamentals of product management.  Product managers apply product management analytics tools to  capture data from digital products. Then, they set KPIs to reveal more insights about NPS, user onboarding, and experience. It helps teams build better products, improve adoption, or build roadmaps, etc.

  • Product managers use analytical tools to process the collected data. They provide and measure Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as churn rate, customer acquisition costs, and Net Promoter Score (NPS). This analysis allows to understand the effectiveness of the product strategies.
  • Analyzing how users interact with existing products or prototypes provides user experience (UX) insights. This can lead to improvements in product design and functionality.
  • Based on these insights, product managers do the product development roadmap. This outlines the vision, direction, priorities, and progress over time. It’s a strategic document, one of the product management fundamentals that aligns the team and stakeholders on the product’s future.

Development

The product management function blooms here. Product development, also called new product management, may be represented as the following steps:

  • Conceptualization is where ideas are transformed into tangible concepts.
  • Design and prototyping phase involves creating detailed designs and prototypes and testing product functionality. 
  • Product development involves engineers, developers, and designers working together to create the product. Agile methodologies are often used here.
  • Feedback integration from users, stakeholders, and team members is essential throughout the development process. 
  • As development nears completion, preparations for the product launch begin. This includes developing marketing strategies, preparing launch materials, and planning for distribution.
  • Market launch. This stage is not the end but rather the beginning of the next cycle of product management (and, hopefully, success!)

Challenges in product management

Product management involves overcoming a range of challenges.

Balancing stakeholder demands

Imagine trying to cook a meal that satisfies everyone’s tastes at a large family dinner. Similarly, a product manager must harmonize the diverse expectations of stakeholders, including customers, investors, and team members, to ensure a product that meets varied needs.

“You don’t need to do everything, but everything is your responsibility.” – Ori Bendet, TimeToKnow​​.

Market changes 

Product managers must stay alert to shifts in consumer preferences, competitor actions, and industry innovations to keep their product relevant and competitive. Imagine developing a new CD player today when all music is digital. It’s the product manager’s job to avoid such situations.  

Technological advancements 

These present both opportunities and challenges. For example, the introduction of a new technology in smartphones, like facial recognition, requires swift adaptation and integration into existing products. Product managers need to stay updated and think on their feet to incorporate these technological changes on the go.

Innovative trends in product management

The growing emphasis on data-driven decision-making is a significant trend. It’s like using a GPS for navigation instead of relying on intuition. Product managers increasingly rely on data analytics to understand customer behavior, market trends, and product performance. This enables more precise and informed decision-making.

Another trend is the increasing integration of artificial intelligence (AI) in products. AI can automate routine tasks, provide personalized experiences for users, and enhance product capabilities. Believe it or not, today, AI-enhanced products on the market range from bird feeders to smart baby strollers. 

Additionally, there’s a shift towards greater customer-centricity. Product managers are focusing more on understanding and fulfilling the specific needs and desires of their customers. This helps them create more user-friendly and successful products. Essential parts of the customer-centricity are personalization and omnichannel experiences.  

Tools and technologies in product management

A product manager’s toolkit includes various software and technologies. These tools reinforce basic concepts of product management and make their job more efficient and effective.

  • Project management tools, like Asana or Trello, act like digital planners. They help organize tasks, deadlines, and collaborations. 
  • Analytics tools like Google Analytics or Mixpanel serve as a product manager’s telescope. They provide a clear view of how users interact with their product.
  • Customer feedback tools, such as SurveyMonkey or Uservoice, offer valuable insights into customers’ likes or dislikes about the product. This is essential data for continuous improvement and customer satisfaction.

Fundamentals of product management: metrics

Metrics in product management are like the dashboard of a car, showing the health and performance of a product at a glance. 

  • Key performance indicators (KPIs) such as customer acquisition cost, churn rate, and monthly recurring revenue help measure the growth potential and financial health of a product.
  • User engagement metrics, like daily active users or average session duration, indicate how often and long users interact with the product. It’s like foot traffic in a retail store – the more engagement, the better.
  • Net Promoter Score (NPS) is another vital metric, acting as a report card showing how likely customers would recommend the product to others.

Best books about product management fundamentals

These key books and resources provide insights and fundamental concepts of product management for everyone looking for success in this sphere:

  1. Marty Cagan, “Inspired: How to Create Products Customers Love.” This book is a staple for product managers, offering a comprehensive overview of modern product management practices.
  2. Ben Yoskovitz and Alistair Croll, “Lean Product and Lean Analytics.” This book is crucial for understanding how to use data effectively in product management and how to build products in a lean and efficient manner.
  3. Nir Eyal, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.” This book dives into the psychology behind why some products become essential parts of users’ lives and how to design products that create customer habits.
  4. Eric Ries, “The Lean Startup.” A must-read for anyone in the startup space, this book offers insights into building a sustainable business model. It emphasizes the importance of agility and iteration in product development.
  5. Melissa Perri “Escaping the Build Trap.” This book focuses on how organizations can shift their mindset from merely building features to creating valuable products that meet customer needs.
  6. Roman Pichler, “Strategize: Product Strategy and Product Roadmap Practices for the Digital Age.” This book offers strategic frameworks and tools for developing effective product strategies and roadmaps in the digital era.
  7. Teresa Torres, “Continuous Discovery Habits: Discover Products that Create Customer Value and Business Value.” A newer addition to the product management literature, focusing on integrating continuous learning and discovery into the product development process.

You can also take a look at 15 best app development books.

Conclusion

What is product management? It’s knowing how to turn a developed product into pure revenue and what will sell. Good product managers constantly ask difficult management questions to understand the nuances. These are the first principles that go into defining the mission they are following. The deeper you know this, the more accurate their path to the goal will be.

Product managers also need to know how other teams contribute to the work. Consistency among all  digital product agency teams, especially in large companies, avoids clashes. Importantly, it finds opportunities for groups to join forces, accelerate retention progress, and so much more.

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