What Awaits for Product Managers? A Deep Dive

“Somewhere over the rainbow
Way up high
And the dreams that you dream of
Once in a lullaby, oh
Somewhere over the rainbow
Bluebirds fly
And the dreams that you dream of
Dreams really do come true-ooh-ooh”

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Have you ever listened to this song “Somewhere over the rainbow” by Israel? Love this song for the lyrics. Dreams have always been a part of our lives. Passion and growth - major part of the dreams. Those are the dreams we badly wish to become the reality.

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Every single day, the world is encountering new artists, creators, Entrepreneurs, CXOs and much more with a ton of dreams. Every dream is worth chasing for and creating an astonishing career of it.

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Product Management is such an interesting booming career path that requires a culmination of creative, analytical, and business skills.

If you dream of becoming a great product manager, this article is for you - Get to know what the future holds for product managers like you, what is the current state of the role around the globe, and not to forget what are the skills needed to become better at what you do.

Before we delve into the ideas of becoming a great product manager, the skills you need to develop, let’s brush up a little on what is product management and the role of product managers. (This is for people just starting out in the field or wanting to opt product management as a career. Feel free to skip around sections as you want to)

Check out 11 must read books on Product management.

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What is Product management?

Product management is a set of functions included in building a company’s products. The responsibilities range from research, development, marketing, support and constantly optimizing the product.

Let’s take an instance to understand this better. This is your problem statement: You don’t have access to quality dairy products in your city. It is a task to go out every morning to buy them amidst your morning rush.

Solution: The conversation slid in while you were talking to your CEO. Your company decides to develop a product, where people can order farm fresh milk and other dairy products at the doorstep. 

The first step would be research. Research about the competitors, target audience, their personas, company’s market and so on.

The next step would be developing the goals and objectives for the company with respect to the new product being launched.

Next, you build a roadmap. Roadmap generally encompasses the vision, direction, strategy, priorities, the plan of actions, short-term and long-term goals.

On approval of the plans, the execution of the plan will be done within different teams such as development, design and marketing.

Once the product is built, it will undergo a series of testing, will be called for feedback and the product will be launched in the marketplace.

The entire process from research to launching the product and marketing comes under product management. 

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Role of a Product Manager

For many years, product managers have been called as UX designers, project managers, program managers, product owners. However the role of product manager is an intersection between design, development and business but not limited to them.

A product manager is expected to be well versed in any of the above fields and be able to understand the other perspectives as well. A Product manager is not needed to meticulously code and develop as you may read on the internet. 

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The Landscape of Product management

As we now have a basic understanding of what is product management and how the role of product manager is evolving, let’s discuss a bit more about the current state of Product management.

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Mason Adair, the founder of Digital+Product+People mentions in his article the 10 predictions on the Future of Product management that, coming are the days of miracle and wonder for product management.

Yes, it is.
Those who are still in a dilemma whether to believe me or not, keep reading to find out what the future holds for you product managers.

Customer needs as well as the consumer trends are constantly on change. Saying that, every company wants to understand their users better, build intuitive products that best solves the user problems.

A lot of companies are switching to a customer first approach. Better said, products that put users in the first place tend to succeed in the marketplace.

In such scenarios, People who study users, their behavior inside the product and build products that creatively solve their problems have an upper hand than others. If you are keen on this, the field has got a lot of opportunities for you.

You can also learn new things and stay updated on the latest trends in the industry by following top product management blogs. The demand for product managers who can understand the product better in terms of design, development and marketing are on the rise.

Prashant Rabary, Product manager at Krishi says - “With the advent of tech companies, the role is more defined now, with a good career trajectory within the company and outside. People usually start with APM(Feature) then move into PM(Collection of features), then transition into Group PM and then CPO.”

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Skills needed to become a great product manager

To concisely describe, the role product manager requires a knack for problem solving.
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The role is more about problem-solving and creativity in small start-ups and more about project management and stakeholder management in large tech companies, says Prashant.

To dive deep, better road mapping skills are a must-have. This helps in prioritizing the tasks and managing the project better.

 To be able to understand the requirements and take better decisions, market research is something you should get experienced on. Plans without well defined goals reach nowhere. It is vital to understand numbers and keep a track of it.

There are multiple analytics platforms available to make your job easier. If your product has an app, you can check out UserExperior, a mobile app analytics platform.

Data analysis and risk analysis are some of the other core skills you need to upskill on.

Here are some of the  leading product managers in India you can follow to get some helpful insights.

To conclude, the role of product managers is transforming and demand for product managers are rising. You are on the right track already. The role  is interesting and demanding at the same time.

Make sure you keep yourself updated and help the community out there to learn and grow.
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