The key responsibility of the product manager is to: determine the basic needs of customers, business goals; defining these needs in a way that is understandable to technicians. Define a vision for your product, create a roadmap, and then assemble a team to achieve that vision.
The product manager works to understand customer needs against business goals and translate those needs into simple product requirements or user stories that can then be understood by technical people for simultaneous product development.
Work closely with the team in terms of identifying the client's problem, in terms of designing for your specific product.
As a product manager, you get the opportunity to work in different teams. This is the rule of individual contribution until you reach a certain level and start managing a team of product managers. Although you know that you are responsible for working with a large number of teams, you will not have direct authority over them. This is one of the key skills you need to develop as a product manager.
If you are PASSIONATE about solving a real customer problem...
Key skills required...
Deal with ambiguity
Influence without authority
Making the right trade-offs
Have rationality over rationalizing
("The world needs more rationality and less rationalizing.
Rationalizing is searching for justifications after you`ve reached an opinion or decision.
Rationality is seeking the best logic and data before you commit - and staying open to changing your mind." Adam Grant)
Define the Customer Problem
Identify Solutions
Evaluate the opportunity & risks
Create the Product Vision & Roadmap
Define the Customer experience (MVP & North Star)
Prioritize
Prototype & Test
Launch MVP & Track Performance
Kill or Grow
"A problem well stated is a problem half - solved" - Charles Kettering.
"If I had an hour to solve a problem I`d spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and five minutes thinking about solutions." - Albert Einstein.
Understanding the problem is most important to building a successful product as that is the reason they will buy the product.
Spend lesser time on identifying the problem
Jumping into perceived solution directly
Think solution backwards
Think Technology backwards
Think competitor backwards
Identify "Who is the customer?"
Understand the customer journey, their needs, motivations, pain points
Define the customer problem(s)
Add quantitative and qualitative data (Customer Anecdotes/ Observations) to validate the customer need.
Example of a poorly-written Customer Problem Statement.
"Customers need voice enabled search because it would allow them to search faster without typing. "
This statement is poorly-written because it mentions your product and does not elaborate on a challenge that your customers are facing.
Example of a well-written Customer Problem Statement.
"New Customers from Tier -3, Tier -4 cities find it difficult to type the name which leads to incorrect results and xx% customers dropping off from search (vs yy% for Tier 1& Tier 2 cities)"
This statement is well - written because it narrows down to "Customer cohort", "identifies the problem" also validates the need with data.
Customer Anecdote 1: ""
Customer Anecdote 2: ""
You will need to collect a lot of data from the different sources that we have discussed, but once you do that, it will give you a clear picture of the client's problem statement, the problems the clients are facing. And it will help you create scalable solutions that customers will love and find the right product for the market.
Rashi Gupta, Amazon Sr PM.