What do I do as a Product Manager? - Product Manager Role

Key Takeaways

product manager is the hottest job in the tech industry right now that's because it pays the six figure salary that we have come to expect from the tech industry without being a programming expert in today's video i'm gonna tell you what exactly a product manager does this will help you understand if this job is a good fit for you and whether you should make the switch to product management on this channel we always give you tips and tools on how to fast track your creator in the tech industry so if you're new to our channel please subscribe let's do this starting with the basics what is a product manager the definition of a product manager varies depending on the company sometimes within the same company the role of a product manager might differ from one team to the other to make things easier for us let's look at this venn diagram that beautifully captures the role of a product manager this diagram tells us that a product manager sits at the intersection of user experience technology and business this means that a product manager uses technology to build products that provide great user experience which drives business for the company as a result the product manager has complete responsibility for the success of a product there are three important things to know about a pm a pm wears many hats a pm works as a products researcher to find new product ideas and as a data analyst to bring clarity around product related metrics a pm also acts as a ux specialist to advocate for the best user experience on top of that a pm also works as a coordinator between different teams and acts as a source of truth about the product a pm is an enabler a pm unblocks software engineers data scientists designers and sales to do their best work and achieve a common goal that is to make the product successful a pm is not a manager of anybody a pm collaborates with cross-functional teams and tons of stakeholders it's important not to have any management relationship between the pm and the people they collaborate with as this ensures a more honest feedback on the product i already mentioned how a pm is responsible for the success of our products but how does a pm measure the success of the product a pm defines goals that are also called objective care results or okrs let's take an example let's say you're a product manager in the amazon landing page team you did customer research and found out that 10 of customers who click on a product on the landing page later find out that the product price was outside their budget and therefore abandoned the cards to solve this problem we decided to work with your team of engineers to surface the prices on the landing page as a result of this change you expect that only two percent of the customers will have the same problem reducing the car's abandonment rate from 10 to 2 would be your okr now that we know what a product manager is let's talk about the different types of product managers we can classify pms based on who uses their products internal pms manage products that are internal to the company for example as an internal pm you could be managing data analytics platform that's used by data scientists within the company business to consumer or b2cpms manage products where the customers are individuals like you and me there are so many examples of such products including youtube instagram ticktalk business to business or b2pms manage products that are made for other enterprises for example amazon aws or slack you can also classify pms based on the nature of the product they manage technical pms manage products that require technical understanding an example of this would be a facebook pm responsible for the news feed generation such a pm would need a solid understanding of the technology power in the back end of facebook news feed non-technical pms manage products that do not use technology or manage non-technical aspects of a product like branding let's take an example of a nike pm who's responsible for procurement such a pm would need to have a good understanding of the sports industry as well as logistics and supply chain having said that there's still an overlap between technical and non-technical pm roles in both cases a pm has to advocate for the customer needs analyze data prioritize features and create a product roadmap all of these are considered fundamental skills for product management now coming up we'll talk about what makes product management different from other similar roles so stay tuned for that but first like this video and let me know in the comments down below what kind of product manager would you like to be now let's talk about a question i got asked very frequently in career fairs and conferences some people confuse product management with project management or even program management so what is the difference between project and program management we already know what a product manager does now let's have a look at what a project manager does project managers are responsible for the success of a project let's say you want to build a bridge you need to hire someone who can accomplish this project in a reasonable time and within the alarm budget someone who knows how to deal with unexpected events like supply shortages and delays in this case a project manager would be best suited for the job note that product managers do need project management skills but this is not the core of the pm job finally i want to talk about program managers program managers are responsible for the success of a program which is usually an initiative containing multiple interconnected projects let's take an example as a program manager in the facebook shopping experience team you might be responsible for multiple projects related to improving the shopping experience for buyers as well as sellers you'll be working with multiple project managers to ensure that these projects get completed before the deadline i learned all this by working as a product manager at microsoft many people think that getting a job at a big tech company is really hard they dread going through rounds and rounds of interviews watch this video to learn about an easy path you can use to get into bigtech i'll see you on the next one [Music] you