{"id":2243,"date":"2016-06-20T06:00:02","date_gmt":"2016-06-20T05:00:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/uxstudioteam.com\/website\/?p=2243"},"modified":"2023-03-21T07:29:19","modified_gmt":"2023-03-21T06:29:19","slug":"what-makes-you-a-product-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timemachine.uxstudioteam.com\/ux-blog\/what-makes-you-a-product-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"What makes you a product manager?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-2259 aligncenter\" src=\"https:\/\/uxstudioteam.com\/ux-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/breaking-bad-die-besten-72440_big.jpg\" alt=\"breaking-bad-die-besten-72440_big\" width=\"590\" height=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Most roles have\u00a0well-defined functions, but\u00a0product\u00a0management\u00a0is definitely not one of them. It has a different meaning in each company, which doesn&#8217;t help me in deciding what makes a product manager.\u00a0In order to find this out, I\u2019ve read lots of articles from different product managers, trying to understand what you\u00a0do, what your\u00a0problems are and how you\u00a0see your\u00a0own roles in the team. Guided by these papers I identified some\u00a0points that are common in almost all of them.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Understanding\u00a0customer needs<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The first thing that makes a Product Manager is making sure that the right things are done in the right time, and most importantly, making sure that these things\u00a0are all done in order to create a better\u00a0product.<\/p>\n<p>Most of you think that it\u2019s critical to identify customer needs, make decisions in favour of them, know your\u00a0products better than anybody else in the company and also understand its life cycle, see through the whole process\u00a0and know how to measure the product&#8217;s success.<\/p>\n<p>Product Managers always try to find new ways to solve problems when requirements do not meet. You\u00a0are most definitely enthusiastic and you\u00a0care about your\u00a0customers.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Making the team&#8217;s life easier<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>The second thing that most product managers have in common is that they try to ensure that the team works well. Product managers\u00a0know that in favour of the product they have to take into account not only the customers, but also the internal stakeholders that are involved with the product.<\/p>\n<p>One of your\u00a0most important tasks is to make the team\u2019s job easier by understanding their workflow, providing them with ideas on how to be more efficient and trying to convince the management if necessary.<\/p>\n<p>Making people feel more comfortable and confident is also a huge part of your job.\u00a0<em>&#8220;My work always came second to theirs, and there was nothing I wouldn\u2019t interrupt for them. The result was a mutual trust and respect.&#8221;\u00a0<\/em>&#8211; says\u00a0Mark Rabo in his <a href=\"http:\/\/venturebeat.com\/2016\/05\/24\/shutterstock-boosts-its-machine-learning-credentials-with-launch-of-reverse-image-search-on-ios\/\">article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>A lot of experienced product managers say that they never write codes, run tests, create marketing campaigns or work on the user interface, they just help the team in creating a good work environment where they can sufficiently perform\u00a0all these tasks. Of course most of you<span>\u00a0don&#8217;t just serve your\u00a0teams, but you\u00a0are proud of them.<\/span><\/p>\n<h2><strong>Communicating\u00a0a lot<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>I think it&#8217;s a fact\u00a0that all product managers communicate a lot. You probably\u00a0keep in touch with the tech teams, sales, marketing, CTO, CEO and sometimes even with customers.<\/p>\n<p>Communication is the key for you\u00a0to do your\u00a0jobs right and it must be the task that takes the most of your\u00a0time. <em>&#8220;Forgetting the (&#8230;)\u00a0so called lunch in between, the product manager rushes to tech team and pleads (&#8230;)\u00a0to them to fix it urgently.&#8221;<\/em>\u00a0&#8211; Amit Goel&#8217;s <a href=\"http:\/\/patterbuzz.com\/2016\/01\/a-day-in-life-of-a-product-manager\/\">post<\/a>\u00a0shows well how much communication is needed and how exhausting this rush\u00a0could be for the product manager. It is also important that product managers\u00a0usually work in an environment where technology, business and UX meet.<\/p>\n<p>According to <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@matbalez\/product-manager-you-are-664d83ee702e#.isus1ksob\">a great article<\/a> a product manager is a CEO, a coach, an engineer, a janitor, a hammer, a router, a super user, an inventor, a ghost and the product itself, all at the same time.<\/p>\n<h2><strong>Strategic way of\u00a0thinking<\/strong><\/h2>\n<p>Most Product Managers have or at least try to have a strategic way of thinking. They want to build a team that can evolve for a more efficient workflow and better products. The majority of product managers know that they have to\u00a0communicate the vision and encourage team members to actively participate in developing their own skills and the\u00a0elements of both the workflow and the product.<\/p>\n<p>So, understanding customer needs, knowing the product better than anyone else, making the team&#8217;s life easier, communicating with internal stakeholders in favour of the team and paying attention to the future are probably the basic components of your job as a\u00a0product manager.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Most roles have\u00a0well-defined functions, but\u00a0product\u00a0management\u00a0is definitely not one of them. It has a different meaning in each company, which doesn&#8217;t help me in deciding what makes a product manager.\u00a0In order to find this out, I\u2019ve read lots of articles from different product managers, trying to understand what you\u00a0do, what your\u00a0problems are and how you\u00a0see your\u00a0own&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":26,"featured_media":2259,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"table_tags":[],"coauthors":[50],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v21.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>What makes you a product manager?<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/uxstudioteam.com\/ux-blog\/what-makes-you-a-product-manager\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"What makes you a product manager?\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Most roles have\u00a0well-defined functions, but\u00a0product\u00a0management\u00a0is definitely not one of them. It has a different meaning in each company, which doesn&#8217;t help me in deciding what makes a product manager.\u00a0In order to find this out, I\u2019ve read lots of articles from different product managers, trying to understand what you\u00a0do, what your\u00a0problems are and how you\u00a0see your\u00a0own&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/uxstudioteam.com\/ux-blog\/what-makes-you-a-product-manager\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"UX Studio\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/uxstudio.hu\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2016-06-20T05:00:02+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-03-21T06:29:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/timemachine.uxstudioteam.com\/ux-blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/05\/breaking-bad-die-besten-72440_big.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"590\" \/>\n\t<meta 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