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Product Manager Role Explained: Responsibilities, Skills, and Salaries
Product managers are the driving force behind successful products. They are responsible for product development, launch, and ongoing improvement.
In this article, we will see what it takes to ace the product manager role, be a value-adding person to your team and what kind of salary you can expect in the role.
What's the product manager role?
Product management is a strategic function that involves envisioning, planning, and executing the development and launch of products. Product managers serve as the bridge between teams, stakeholders and customers to ensure alignment and drive the product's success.
In the product manager role, ensuring that your product aligns with the company's overall goals is super important if you want it to be successful — you can do this by:
- Understanding of the company's overall strategy
- Communicating effectively with others
- Setting clear goals and working toward them
- Continuously improving
Key responsibilities
Product managers wear multiple hats throughout the product development life cycle. Their primary responsibilities include the following:
Conducting market research
Product managers perform market research to understand customers' needs, identify market trends, and assess the competition. By doing so, PMs can make informed decisions about product development, positioning, and marketing strategies linked with it.
Here's how to conduct whole market research:
- Analyze industry reports.
- Conduct surveys and interviews.
- Study customer feedback.
- Monitor competitors and leverage data analytics tools to gather insights and validate assumptions.
Creating a product strategy
In this role, a product manager creates a product strategy with the insights collected during the research phase to provide a clear direction and guidance for product development — defining the product's vision, strategy, and roadmap to ensure it aligns with business goals and meets customer needs.
Creating a product strategy includes:
- Analyzing market trends
- Conducting customer research
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams
- Setting strategic goals
- Prioritizing features and initiatives
- Continuously iterating the strategy based on market feedback and performance metrics
Requirements gathering
In the product manager role, a person gathers customer requirements and uses them to see if the product meets their expectations while aligning with the company's overall strategy.
Product managers collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather input from various stakeholders and prioritize requirements based on market demands, technical feasibility, business objectives, and customer value.
To gather all this data, PMs conduct meetings, analyze market research, and then document these requirements to create a set of product requirements that guide the development process.
Overseeing the product development process
Product managers oversee the product development process to ensure the product is delivered successfully and meets the desired quality standards — coordinating with the development team and guide them throughout the process to clarify problems that arise during development.
In this role, you also set clear expectations and a timeline to ensure timely delivery. This helps maintain alignment with the product vision, strategy, and customer requirements.
Performing product beta tests
During the beta testing phase, product managers release the product to limited users (the product's core audience) and ask for their feedback to validate its quality before the official launch.
Product managers communicate with these users, provide clear instructions and guidelines for testing, and collect feedback through surveys, interviews, or dedicated feedback channels. This helps them understand how customers interact with the product and make improvements based on these collected insights.
Beta tests also help uncover bugs or technical issues that might have been missed during internal testing– enabling the product team to address these issues before the wider release.
(After launch, testing is just getting started, these autonomous testing tools can help.)
Executing the product launch
In the product manager role, you strategize and coordinate various aspects to ensure the new product's introduction into the market is impactful and generates desired outcomes.
During the execution phase, the product manager collaborates closely with marketing teams to develop effective marketing campaigns, create promotional materials, and implement go-to-market strategies. They also work with sales teams to equip them with the necessary knowledge, training, and sales tools.
Performing product performance analysis
To know how well the product meets its objectives and customer needs, product managers monitor and analyze key performance metrics such as:
- Sales data
- User engagement
- Customer satisfaction
- Retention rates
This analysis collects customer feedback through surveys to know their experiences and identify areas for enhancement. With this quantitative and qualitative data, you can understand the product's performance and make informed decisions for iterative improvements, feature prioritization, and future product roadmap planning.
Product managers are the driving force behind successful products. They are responsible for product development, launch, and ongoing improvement.
In this article, we will see what it takes to ace the product manager role, be a value-adding person to your team and what kind of salary you can expect in the role.
What's the product manager role?
Product management is a strategic function that involves envisioning, planning, and executing the development and launch of products. Product managers serve as the bridge between teams, stakeholders and customers to ensure alignment and drive the product's success.
In the product manager role, ensuring that your product aligns with the company's overall goals is super important if you want it to be successful — you can do this by:
- Understanding of the company's overall strategy
- Communicating effectively with others
- Setting clear goals and working toward them
- Continuously improving
Key responsibilities
Product managers wear multiple hats throughout the product development life cycle. Their primary responsibilities include the following:
Conducting market research
Product managers perform market research to understand customers' needs, identify market trends, and assess the competition. By doing so, PMs can make informed decisions about product development, positioning, and marketing strategies linked with it.
Here's how to conduct whole market research:
- Analyze industry reports.
- Conduct surveys and interviews.
- Study customer feedback.
- Monitor competitors and leverage data analytics tools to gather insights and validate assumptions.
Creating a product strategy
In this role, a product manager creates a product strategy with the insights collected during the research phase to provide a clear direction and guidance for product development — defining the product's vision, strategy, and roadmap to ensure it aligns with business goals and meets customer needs.
Creating a product strategy includes:
- Analyzing market trends
- Conducting customer research
- Collaborating with cross-functional teams
- Setting strategic goals
- Prioritizing features and initiatives
- Continuously iterating the strategy based on market feedback and performance metrics
Requirements gathering
In the product manager role, a person gathers customer requirements and uses them to see if the product meets their expectations while aligning with the company's overall strategy.
Product managers collaborate with cross-functional teams to gather input from various stakeholders and prioritize requirements based on market demands, technical feasibility, business objectives, and customer value.
To gather all this data, PMs conduct meetings, analyze market research, and then document these requirements to create a set of product requirements that guide the development process.
Overseeing the product development process
Product managers oversee the product development process to ensure the product is delivered successfully and meets the desired quality standards — coordinating with the development team and guide them throughout the process to clarify problems that arise during development.
In this role, you also set clear expectations and a timeline to ensure timely delivery. This helps maintain alignment with the product vision, strategy, and customer requirements.
Performing product beta tests
During the beta testing phase, product managers release the product to limited users (the product's core audience) and ask for their feedback to validate its quality before the official launch.
Product managers communicate with these users, provide clear instructions and guidelines for testing, and collect feedback through surveys, interviews, or dedicated feedback channels. This helps them understand how customers interact with the product and make improvements based on these collected insights.
Beta tests also help uncover bugs or technical issues that might have been missed during internal testing– enabling the product team to address these issues before the wider release.
(After launch, testing is just getting started, these autonomous testing tools can help.)
Executing the product launch
In the product manager role, you strategize and coordinate various aspects to ensure the new product's introduction into the market is impactful and generates desired outcomes.
During the execution phase, the product manager collaborates closely with marketing teams to develop effective marketing campaigns, create promotional materials, and implement go-to-market strategies. They also work with sales teams to equip them with the necessary knowledge, training, and sales tools.
Performing product performance analysis
To know how well the product meets its objectives and customer needs, product managers monitor and analyze key performance metrics such as:
- Sales data
- User engagement
- Customer satisfaction
- Retention rates
This analysis collects customer feedback through surveys to know their experiences and identify areas for enhancement. With this quantitative and qualitative data, you can understand the product's performance and make informed decisions for iterative improvements, feature prioritization, and future product roadmap planning.
An Expert's Perspective
To better understand career paths, skills needed, and keys to success for a Product Manager we spoke with Amy Graham an instructor at Pragmatic Institute. Amy Graham has more than a decade of experience in product management, development and operations. Amy has launched and managed a variety of products, including multi-million dollar software projects and mobile apps. Prior to joining Pragmatic Institute, Amy was vice president, client services and product development at TalenTrust. She previously served as director of technology solutions at Bright Horizons Family Solutions and on the leadership team at Work Options Group.
In this section, we've included Amy's responses to our prompts.
What is the most important skill for any product manager to have?
It's hard to pick just one, but I’d have to say the most important skill is communication. If you’re following best practices, a product manager’s core responsibility is to be the market expert and the voice of the customer. To do this effectively, product managers must keep a finger on the pulse of the market. The only way to do that is to leave your desk, immerse yourself in the market, and talk to people!
Product managers need to feel comfortable probing and layering their questions to get to the "good stuff." Communication skills are essential because they uncover people’s pain points and forge a deep understanding of their motivations and goals.
How do product managers support strategic business goals?
Product managers have a tremendous opportunity to support strategic business goals and bring value to the organization. They are responsible for ensuring that the product vision and roadmaps align with the company strategy. Product managers can also contribute by providing valuable insights into the competitive landscape.
These insights can help the business identify opportunities and threats in the market. When coupled with other market data, competitive insights can lead the organization toward innovation, bringing new and hopefully disruptive technology to the market.
How can product managers demonstrate the value they provide for the company?
Many product teams face two primary challenges:
- Subjective, inside-out approaches to development
- Lack of prioritization
Inside-out approaches develop products and features based on internal ideas and unchallenged assumptions about what the market needs. Instead of building products the market wants, inside-out teams build products they think the market wants (or worse, they themselves want). Because inside-out approaches are subjective, they can’t hold up against emotions and internal politics, which can cause a lack of clear prioritization. Product teams end up spinning, endlessly reprioritizing their tasks, wasting time, money, and energy.
A good product manager solves both of these problems by representing the market and acting as the voice of the customer. They ensure product teams take a market-driven, outside-in approach and build solutions that people actually want. This approach to product development ensures we are not just building for ourselves but instead are building for the actual people we want to delight and serve within our market. By leading the organization with a market-driven approach, product managers can help teams prioritize efficiently, saving valuable resources.
Efficiently building successful products supports strategic business goals, such as driving revenue, retaining customers, or increasing market share. By communicating how they use real data to form market-driven strategies and prioritize projects, product managers can demonstrate how they bring value to the organization.
How can product managers stay on top of emerging trends and topics in product management?
Product Managers must be constantly curious and always open to learning! There are several great ways to stay current with what's happening in the product management world around us. My top recommendations include:
Read industry publications and blogs.
Pay attention to what topics people discuss, the volume of conversations, how people react or reply, and the data they present. Some examples of industry blogs include but are not limited to:
- Pragmatic Institute
- Mind the Product
- Product Management Today
- Product Coalition
- SVPG (Silicon Valley Product Group) Blog
Follow industry thought leaders.
Keeping up with influential product management thought leaders and reading their books and research papers can provide new insights and perspectives. It can also help you validate best practices. If you find yourself asking, "How are other companies doing product management?" or “How do I know if I’m doing this right?”, thought leaders can provide expert perspectives. Well-known authors in the product world include Marty Cagan, Eric Ries, Alan Cooper, and many others. I recommend searching for authors with expertise in your industry or subject area.
I also suggest identifying industry thought leaders to learn from daily. You can follow their work through social media like LinkedIn or Twitter, forum discussions on Reddit or Quora, or subscribe to their newsletters or Substacks. Indi Young and Teresa Torres are two wonderful thought leaders I follow on LinkedIn. They consistently post valuable content and provide data along with true actionable insights.
Listen to podcasts and webinars.
Listening to podcasts and attending webinars hosted by industry experts and thought leaders can provide relevant and current insights.
Some great podcasts include but are not limited to:
- Pragmatic Live
- The Product Podcast by Product School
- This is Product Management
- Product Talk
- The Women in Product
- Rocketship.fm
Join networking and social media platforms.
Join and follow professional associations and groups on LinkedIn, such as Pragmatic Institute, Product Marketing Alliance, AIChatbots, ChatGPT & Marketing, and many more. You can also leverage Slack to connect with local product professionals. For example, I recently joined a Slack channel called Colorado Product that allows local Colorado product professionals to ask questions, swap stories, and share resources.
While virtual connections are helpful, I still find value in in-person meetups. Local meetup groups like Product Camps (Product Camp Austin, Product Camp OC, etc.) create spaces for product professionals to meet, network, and stay informed of trending industry topics.
What do product managers need to know about stakeholder management?
Product managers often manage multiple stakeholders with varied interests and different priorities. They are responsible for keeping everyone in the loop, managing expectations, and even playing peacemaker when priorities conflict. Product managers are often asked to be "everything to everyone". When every task and feature is a priority, stakeholder management can be very challenging.
Product managers connect engineering, marketing, operations, and design. Additionally, they often have to manage stakeholders who are multiple levels above them within the organization—think VPs or C-level executives. In these instances, product managers have the unique and difficult challenge of managing through influence instead of through the authority granted by a flashy title.
A key success factor for product managers is building strong relationships and earning respect and credibility. Think of stakeholder management as being a bridge between various groups. You must be open, actively listen, and communicate clearly and consistently. It is crucial to understand what each stakeholder values—progress, satisfaction, quality, or a mix—and align their needs with the product vision. Doing this creates a collaborative environment where everyone feels heard and invested in the product's success.
Skills required in a product manager role
Strong analytical skills
Product managers should have analytical skills in order to gather and interpret data, identify patterns, and make informed decisions about the product. Product managers should also be comfortable working with metrics, conducting market research, and utilizing data analysis tools.
Communication and collaboration
In the product manager role, you should know how to communicate your product's vision, strategy, and requirements to cross-functional teams and stakeholders. These strong collaboration skills will help you build relationships and align everyone toward a common goal.
Ability to think strategically
Product managers need to think strategically and:
- Consider the long-term goals and vision of the product.
- Identify market opportunities
- Anticipate industry trends
- Align the product roadmap with the company's overall strategy
Keeping a user-centric mindset
As a product manager, you should have empathy toward the user. This will help you conduct user research and leverage their feedback to effectively create or modify products that address customer pain points.
Best practices for product managers
Learn the user story mapping technique
User story mapping is a powerful technique for product managers to visualize the user journey and prioritize features. It helps understand the user's perspective and ensures the product is built to meet their needs.
Learn new trends in the market
In the product manager role, you should always learn and stay updated with industry trends and emerging technologies. This will help you make better decisions, drive innovation, and stay ahead of the competition.
(Check out the latest cybersecurity trends & internet trends.)
Build strong relationships with stakeholders
A product manager should build strong relationships with stakeholders, such as executives, developers, and marketing teams. This will help you secure the necessary resources and facilitate the smooth execution of the product roadmap.
Salary of product managers
As per the latest update of June 2023 from Glassdoor, a product manager makes $146,840 annually in the United States, with an average salary of $111,205.
However, factors such as location and experience can affect this number. Here are some other 2023 salary reports:
- Per Ziprecuriter.com's 2023 report, product managers in the US make around $153,698 on average.
- Salary.com says product managers have an average salary of $77,855 per year.
(Check out more salaries for IT roles plus IT spending forecasts.)
Summing up
The product manager role is multifaceted and requires a diverse skill set. Product managers play a pivotal role in driving the success of a product, from its inception to its ongoing improvement.
A successful product manager is not just about managing tasks– it's about understanding customer needs, aligning stakeholders, and being a strategic leader who can drive the product toward success.
See an error or have a suggestion? Please let us know by emailing splunkblogs@cisco.com.
This posting does not necessarily represent Splunk's position, strategies or opinion.
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