Product Life Cycle Examples: Theory, Definition, Stages

(Note: This article was first posted on LinkedIn Pulse by Dalan Mendonca, Product Manager at Instamojo.) Answering a question that I get asked a lot. Short answer The Product Manager is the jack of all trades, coordinating with design, engineering, sales, et al. to make the product better and grow the business. In general, if you’ve: Taken a project from start to finish/operational state. Worked with diverse stakeholders to get your project out. Have a basic awareness of the multitude of things that shape a product like design, marketing, support, QA, analytics etc. you should be able to move into a product manager role. Long answer Step 1. Understand who a Product Manager is You may have heard about this job indirectly (as I did) or worked directly with a PM or two. In any case it might be useful to know the job before trying for it! PM are to products what CEOs are to companies. A PM (or the PM team) is responsible for every aspect of the product from the bounce of the animations on the app to the speed of customer service. You own that shit & any product problem is your problem. Sounds like a vague job description doesn’t it? You must be thinking so what does the PM actually do? The answer, whatever it takes to make the product successful. Yes, it’s a vague role because PMs by nature are generalists. The product manager will: Define goals for the product, decide actions to be taken, communicate that clearly to the team, get things built, see if it matches expectations, rinse repeat. The work varies based on the stage of the company too. A PM at an early stage company will be responsible for defining the product, understanding the market, picking the best features to push out in version 1, and probably also hiring the team. Slightly later, it’s about tuning the product to its users, testing out the assumptions underlying your product, and making something your users get with ease. As the product matures, the focus might shift to growing the number of users, putting the right metrics around it, optimizing the product to perform at a better scale, etc. Check out our management programs to upskill yourself. Step 2. Get/fake PM experience Now you’re like “Yeah great I get what a PM does, how do I become one?” Get product thinking — A product is the culmination of many things, the important thing is learn how to take a holistic viewpoint of products instead of sitting on one side of the iOS vs Android or insert you pet battle here> debate. Go own a project — Take something from start to finish. Do things you couldn’t have done on your own. Go cross-functional — Try to understand in depth what people in various departments in a company do on a daily basis. Figure out business models — Take your random idea and then imagine how you’d make money from this. How does X company sell its stuff/make money? Critique products — Love/hate some product? Explain what’s so awesome/sucky about it. What would add/remove from it? If you were to launch X today, what would be different about it? How did it get so popular? Working on a hobby project/product of your own is by far the easiest way to gain the above.  Explore our Popular Management Programs Leadership and Management in New-Age Business Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Human Resource Management Professional Certificate Programme in HR Management and Analytics Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Healthcare Management Executive Management Programme in Strategic Innovation Digital Marketing and Business Analytics Certificate Programme in Finance for Non Finance Executives Certificate Programme in Operations Management and Analytics Global Master Certificate in Integrated Supply Chain Management upGrad's Job Linked Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad Global Professional Certificate in Effective Leadership & Management Advanced General Management Program Strategic Human Resources Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Digital Transformation Cornell Certificate Program Executive Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Management Essentials Management Programs Step 3. Understand basic PM terminology What to build — Requirements, wireframes, product specs, functional specs, technical specs, flowcharts. When to build — Roadmaps, pipelines Measuring things: What are people up to — Funnels, AIDA, MAUs/WAUs/DAUs, retention, (likes, shares, tweets, pins), (likes, shares, tweets, pins)/ person, time spent, bounce rate, installs, searches, .. Money — Total revenue, ARPU, LTV, avg. ticket size, GMV, General management BS: Stakeholders, value proposition, .. just hangout with an MBA grad for a few hours and you’ll be sorted in this department. upGrad’s Exclusive Product Management Webinar for you – How to craft GTM Strategy for a Product? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/panel-discussion-on-crafting-gtm-strategy-for-a-product.mp4 Step 4. Know the different paths to get there If you’ve got can crack beginner product roles like Associate/Junior PM good for you, else you might have to take a hit and get some “management education”. Also, a lot of folks move into the Product Management from related roles like Product Marketing, QA, etc. Top Management Skills to Learn SL. No Top Management Skills to Learn 1 Consumer Behaviour Online Programs Financial Analysis Programs FinTech Programs Online 2 HR Analytics Programs Online Communication Programs Online Effective Communication Programs 3 Research Methodology Programs Mastering Sales Programs Business Communication Programs 4 Fundamentals of Journalism Programs Economics Masterclass Online Programs My own story I kinda got lucky. I had worked on product-ish projects since right since my college days. My first job was that of a data analyst on the Site Integrity/Anti-Spam team at Facebook — apart the regular data analysis/data modeling work that most analysts do, I got the opportunity to lead some really impactful projects where I worked with lawyers, engineers, policy writers, fellow analysts and security researchers. This was my first taste of blood in terms of working cross-functionally. Hereby lead I mean being the person owning the project and responsible for its success, not in terms of having any title that implied the same. Another experience that got me awesome exposure was an internal rotation I did within Facebook. Think of a rotation as an internal internship where you work with a different team for a while. I worked for the Global Sales Reporting team — this teams assists the top advertisers on Facebook in understanding what happened to their ad money; working here showed me a whole new world of online advertising — Clients, client partners, account managers, sales pitches, campaigns, demographic targeting, ad impressions, click through rates, ad inventory, various ad products/ad networks and a whole lot more. It was really eye opening to work in a team operating in the same company but working very differently because they solved a whole different problem. The above experiences amongst a litany of others, helped me make up mind about getting into the PM space. I decided to hunt for APM roles or Business analyst roles in companies where I could move into a PM role later. Did crack quite a few interviews where everything went fine but in most cases was rejected in the end for not having any prior PM experience. However all was not lost, I did crack an Associate PM role at Paytm, one of India’s fastest growing e-commerce companies. That gig however didn’t pan out for too long and I was out looking for another place — I ended taking up a Product Manager role (YAY! Promotion from APM :’D) at an early stage startup called Instamojo for the (possible) experience and challenge of seeing a company grow into something bigger and thats from where I write this today. Our Top Management Articles Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced] Online Product Management Courses to Kickstart your Career Top 10 Career Options in Business Management in India 8 Crucial Business Management Skills Every Manager Should Have Future Scope of Management: Scope, Salary, Career Opportunities Career Options After MBA – Highest Paying Management Jobs 5 Key Skills Required for Successful Management Career & How To Achieve Those Skills? What is The Nature and Scope of Management? Importance of Management in Every Organisation – [A Complete Guide] So around 18 months into this, having not (yet) being fired as a PM, I can say my transition into being a product manager hasn’t gone that bad 😀 Study Product Management Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. If you are highly intrigued by what you read, you can enroll in the Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management offered by upGrad. The certification program delivered by experts will help you kickstart your career to be a successful product manager. Featured Program for you: Design Thinking Certification Program from Duke CE

Note: This article is originally written by Dinesh Vernekar, Head of Growth – Gaana, Product Manager | Analytics | Mobile Technology moves very fast. As a product manager, you have to adapt and constantly evolve. Also you need to keep track of multiple threads and be productive at the same time. In the past 2 years I’ve worked on a search stack for Gaana, a digital asset management system and built out an android app (go check Smartapp, the fastest way to recharge with smart recommendations!). Project management is a big part of product in the initial stages but success is defined by metrics and focus. I believe the job definition constantly evolves. Below is my experience so far. I try to start out as early as possible so I’m off to work by 7.30 am. I grab some breakfast at work as soon as I come. My day is broken down into 4 key parts. 1. Email and organisation — Follow-up, keeping track of things. 2. Discussion — Resolving issues, helping the team move forward. 3. Creative work — Defining a requirement 4. Planning — High-level purview Things I do on a daily basis: 10:00–11.00 am, through the day. Email and Slack: I joke that my job is to write emails. But it might not be that far from the truth. Communication is a very important function of a PM. I start by replying/marking the most important threads. 10.30 am Daily scrum and JIRA board: A daily scrum helps everyone chip in with their inputs and identify possible issues. A typical meeting lasts about 20 mins. We use JIRA for project planning. It’s a bit hard to get started with this tool but it’s quite powerful. A functional document is broken down into tasks and a sprint is planned. I do this as I come across ideas. Explore our Popular Business Management Courses Leadership and Management in New-Age Business Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Human Resource Management Professional Certificate Programme in HR Management and Analytics Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Healthcare Management Executive Management Programme in Strategic Innovation Digital Marketing and Business Analytics Certificate Programme in Finance for Non Finance Executives Certificate Programme in Operations Management and Analytics Global Master Certificate in Integrated Supply Chain Management upGrad's Job Linked Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad Global Professional Certificate in Effective Leadership & Management Advanced General Management Program Strategic Human Resources Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Digital Transformation Cornell Certificate Program Executive Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Management Essentials Business Management Courses The actual work: 11.00 am — 2:00 pm Product specification: I prefer the Joel Spolsky way of writing a detailed functional specification. It helps us get clarity on the requirement and speeds up dev. Entire days are spent defining and refining a spec. Once a spec is created, it’s broken down into individual JIRA tasks and prioritised in the backlog. As a PM, the focus is on the outcome. upGrad’s Exclusive Product Management Webinar for you – How to craft GTM Strategy for a Product? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/panel-discussion-on-crafting-gtm-strategy-for-a-product.mp4   Setting goals and meeting them matters more than the process. You take a number of small decisions everyday like postponing a feature, trimming something down etc. I’ve screwed up a number of tasks by not defining a task properly, building the wrong thing, being under-prepared. As a PM it’s your job to take responsibility for it all. Reading documentation:  Understanding the third-party SDK, testing the APIs, raising questions. Writing documentation: Documentation of APIs, updating them on a timely basis. I think this is very important. If you’ve done the hard work and designed an easy to use extendable API, you should definitely go the extra mile and detail it out. First level of debug: I’m also the first level of debug for the APIs. Top Essential Management Skills to Learn SL. No Top Management Skills to Learn 1 Consumer Behaviour Online Certification Financial Analysis Certification FinTech Certification Online 2 HR Analytics Certification Online Communication Courses Online Effective Communication Certification 3 Research Methodology Certification Mastering Sales Certification Business Communication Certification 4 Fundamentals of Journalism Certification Economics Masterclass Online Certification 3:00 pm Discussion and meetings: A discussion can range from an optimal UX flow to design of a new payment api. For a typical meeting, you prepare the points to be discussed, figure out possible problem points and communicate before hand if possible. Now with slack, we just post ideas to a channel and team members contribute through the day. Typically we hold a meeting after lunch. A lot of this is tedious and it’s easy to be caught in the process loop. 4:00 pm Google analytics and metrics: When I worked on the search stack, we spent a good amount of time debating the right metrics to be tracked. The fun stuff: I spend a decent amount of my day tweeting random stuff, reading news on hacker news and keeping up with tech news. Keeping up: A PM has to constantly evolve to keep up with the latest trends in design, play-store eco-system etc. I’ve completed a couple of tracks online. I’m currently learning Android dev. 6.30 pm Goofing around: When I’m not all serious and updating JIRA tasks, I’m goofing around making inappropriate comments and drinking coffee. Hanging out with friends etc. Final comments: I’m constantly evaluating what it means to be a good PM. Keeping up with different threads, getting better at strategy, looking at the larger picture, building empathy. I’ll love to hear your thoughts. Study Product Management Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. Our Top Management Articles Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced] Online Product Management Courses to Kickstart your Career Top 10 Career Options in Business Management in India 8 Crucial Business Management Skills Every Manager Should Have Future Scope of Management: Scope, Salary, Career Opportunities Career Options After MBA – Highest Paying Management Jobs 5 Key Skills Required for Successful Management Career & How To Achieve Those Skills? What is The Nature and Scope of Management? Importance of Management in Every Organisation – [A Complete Guide] Featured Program for you: Design Thinking Certification Program from Duke CE

Learn how you can acquire the technical skills of a product manager A product manager’s job is not easy – neither to define nor to execute. When there are so many definitions of what the role is, it gets tougher to define what the role exactly entails. There are a 100 things a product manager is responsible for along the product journey; right from conceptualization to design to building the product to taking it to market. For a role that has touch points across the business, it is important for an aspiring PM to understand the skills that a product manager must have. Through a series of articles, UpGrad will help you figure what it takes to be a PM. We will also tell you what you can do, every day, in order to develop these skills and smoothen your transition to a product manager. There are basically three key areas that the work of a PM is focused on. For the sake of not repeating the clichéd Venn diagram, the skills are listed as follows: – Technical skills Design Skills Business and managerial skills In this first article of the series, we are going to talk about what the first bucket – the technical skills required to be a PM and how you can develop them. Explore our Popular Business Management Courses Leadership and Management in New-Age Business Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Human Resource Management Professional Certificate Programme in HR Management and Analytics Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Healthcare Management Executive Management Programme in Strategic Innovation Digital Marketing and Business Analytics Certificate Programme in Finance for Non Finance Executives Certificate Programme in Operations Management and Analytics Global Master Certificate in Integrated Supply Chain Management upGrad's Job Linked Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad Global Professional Certificate in Effective Leadership & Management Advanced General Management Program Strategic Human Resources Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Digital Transformation Cornell Certificate Program Executive Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Management Essentials Business Management Courses Technical skills: A PM is typically not required to write code to develop a product. However as someone whose core role is to solve problems using technology, a PM still needs strong technical knowledge to: Define how the product should function to solve the problem at hand Accurately define and prioritize product requirements based on the effort required to build them Efficiently communicate with the engineering team to brainstorm solutions, validating timelines and checking progress Also Read: A day in the life of a Product Manager – Making it all work There are a number of things an aspiring PM can do to build their technical expertise: Learn how to code – In all probability, you will not be required to code as a PM. However, knowing how to code will get you well versed with the terminology, help you understand the tech constraints and feasibility much more accurately, and help you communicate your requirements and collaborate far better with the engineering team. You can either pick up a book (like Beginning programming – for dummies, Coding – for dummies), or get on codecademy.com (or other online tutorials), or simply start googling (What is backend development? What are stacks?) to give you a start. You don’t need to be an expert, but it helps to know the basics. Talk to the tech team at your current employment – Another great way of learning to speak the tech language, is to try and engage with the tech team at your current job. Talk to the engineering guys; try to understand what they do, how the team functions, what is the typical software development process, what would they expect for a product manager to know. This can be a good point from where you can then start googling and reading about tech terminologies, as suggested in the previous point. You could also take their assistance in teaching you how to code – you could probably ask them to send you debugging assignments once a while, to get you accustomed to coding. upGrad’s Exclusive Product Management Webinar for you – How to craft GTM Strategy for a Product? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/panel-discussion-on-crafting-gtm-strategy-for-a-product.mp4   Top Essential Management Skills to Learn SL. No Top Management Skills to Learn 1 Consumer Behaviour Online Certification Financial Analysis Certification FinTech Certification Online 2 HR Analytics Certification Online Communication Courses Online Effective Communication Certification 3 Research Methodology Certification Mastering Sales Certification Business Communication Certification 4 Fundamentals of Journalism Certification Economics Masterclass Online Certification Learn SQL – SQL is a programming language designed for managing and querying data in a database. As a product manager, you will often need to play around a lot of data. Learning the basics of SQL will help you go a long way in your PM journey. It isn’t complicated and won’t be an investment heavy on time. Develop a technical viewpoint – Technology will be at the core of whatever product you develop as a PM. Starting to think about products with a technical lens will prove to be extremely rewarding in helping you develop a product vision. Every time you use an app, think about The technology that the app is using How is the app different from its peers on the technology front? What can you do to improve the app? You could run by your suggestion with the technical team at your office, over a casual chat, to know if have been thinking in the right direction – from a feasibility point of view, and getting their opinion on how they think about the app. Doing this exercise on an ongoing basis will definitely help you develop a technical viewpoint of looking at products. Stay updated on the tech ecosystem – Start reading about what is happening in the technology space. Start following Quora, Mashable,TechCrunch, Verge, Tech Insider, Gizmodo, and others. Read digital news. Have discussions about what is new, what is defunct and what is upcoming. It will help you in ideation, conceptualization and execution alike. Hack up a side project – And for the final and most effective hack, pick up a fun side project and try and build it from scratch. Could be anything from a simple photo app or a chat bot. Try and get others to use it. Building something from scratch for actual users to use will make you appreciate the intricacy involved at every step and go a long way in improving your technical knowledge. Our Top Management Articles Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced] Online Product Management Courses to Kickstart your Career Top 10 Career Options in Business Management in India 8 Crucial Business Management Skills Every Manager Should Have Future Scope of Management: Scope, Salary, Career Opportunities Career Options After MBA – Highest Paying Management Jobs 5 Key Skills Required for Successful Management Career & How To Achieve Those Skills? What is The Nature and Scope of Management? Importance of Management in Every Organisation – [A Complete Guide] As a PM, you will be interacting with the tech team day in and day out. You will be the sole point of contact between tech, design, business and users. It, therefore, becomes extremely important for you to understand the tech language so as to be able to play the role of a translator well. Practicing the hacks mentioned above while tweaking your daily schedule just a little bit is going to help you in enormous amounts in your journey of being a PM. Stay tuned for two more articles of the edition to learn about design and business skills. Till then, sharpen your tech skills and get closer to becoming a PM! Study Product Management Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. Featured Program for you: Design Thinking Certification Program from Duke CE

We are thrilled to announce that our first batch of UpGrad Product Management Program launched on 30th July and is running houseful with students from top schools like IITs, IIMs, ISB, working at companies such as Practo, HP, Coca-Cola, Adobe, Intel, and others. The sheer diversity of the batch stands as a testament to the exponentially growing interest in the field of product management. 70% of the batch consists of students with over seven years of work experience. There is a healthy balance of professionals from technical and non-technical background, current and aspiring product managers and budding entrepreneurs. Our students hail from varied geographies such as Mumbai, Delhi, Bangalore, Kolkata, Dubai and Germany. While the cohort has a mix of students with diverse backgrounds in terms of experience levels, geographies and work backgrounds, what binds them together is the common goal to start and successfully grow their career in product management. “Structured approach, live projects and mentorship from industry leaders are all which attract me to this program,” says Pulkit Jain, an IIM graduate currently working at Adobe. Kushagra Jaiswal, an IIT Delhi alumnus who is working on his own startup, feels this is a  “chance to learn something which is not frequently taught and the chance to network with the stalwarts of this line of job.” Explore our Popular Business Management Courses Leadership and Management in New-Age Business Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Human Resource Management Professional Certificate Programme in HR Management and Analytics Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Healthcare Management Executive Management Programme in Strategic Innovation Digital Marketing and Business Analytics Certificate Programme in Finance for Non Finance Executives Certificate Programme in Operations Management and Analytics Global Master Certificate in Integrated Supply Chain Management upGrad's Job Linked Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad Global Professional Certificate in Effective Leadership & Management Advanced General Management Program Strategic Human Resources Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Digital Transformation Cornell Certificate Program Executive Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Management Essentials Business Management Courses Read: Scope for Product management career and jobs Product management as a role has come to be one of the most critical ones in current times. There’s no better time to be a product manager in India than today given the booming Indian startup ecosystem.  With the growing number of startups and tech companies in India fighting neck-to-neck to have a competitive edge by launching a new product every year or by constantly improvising on the existing product, there is an increasing demand for PMs who understand the consumer behavior of Indian users. Product managers are the backbone of any product team who play an all-encompassing role of seeing the team through till the product launches in the most responsible and efficient way possible, no matter what they have to do. Neena Budhiraja, Director – Product Management at Ola, says that a product manager is the ‘CEO of his/her product’. Manish Jethani, Head Consumer Products at Grofers, who was the founder of food delivery startup Spoonjoy says “India is going online; even the older generation is rapidly adopting technologies like Facebook, Whatsapp, etc. Now that a lot of products are being made in India for Indian population, there is a gap in availability of people who understand the user behaviour and what needs to be built.” While the demand for this role is at an all time high, the skill-set required is scarce. This is largely because the product management is a nascent career option in India due to which a mentor ecosystem has not developed. Moreover, it is a role that needs one to have a deep understanding across diverse areas such as technology, design and business. To fill this huge demand and skill gap, UpGrad introduced an extensive five-month online Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management — a program that allows you to learn, develop and implement the necessary skills to be an ace product manager. It gives you a sneak peek into the experiences and anecdotes of leading product managers at Microsoft, Paytm, Practo, Myntra, Bookmyshow and other leading companies, inspiring you to hone your soft skills and understand the fundamentals of product management like user research, product design, product analytics and much more.   Top Essential Management Skills to Learn SL. No Top Management Skills to Learn 1 Consumer Behaviour Online Certification Financial Analysis Certification FinTech Certification Online 2 HR Analytics Certification Online Communication Courses Online Effective Communication Certification 3 Research Methodology Certification Mastering Sales Certification Business Communication Certification 4 Fundamentals of Journalism Certification Economics Masterclass Online Certification The UpGrad Product Management Program is a fantastic tool to have at your disposal to learn product management.  – Mangesh Dalvi, AVP – Products, Myntra This course gives you an opportunity to be mentored one-on-one by the product heads of leading technology companies such as Practo, Paytm, Microsoft, Goibibo, and Freshdesk, and learn through live Q&A with industry experts. It lets you get a hands-on experience by making you solve real product problems faced by the industry and thereby building your own product portfolio by the end of the program. Its special placement assistance program helps you showcase your product development knowledge to potential recruiters, thus helping you step into the shoes of a good product manager seamlessly. Here is what Punit Soni, ex-Chief Product Officer at Flipkart, has to say about product management in India: To know more about this program, take a look at the detailed syllabus here. And if you are floored by it, don’t be discouraged by the ‘bookings closed’ sign. The admissions for the next batch which starts on 15th October is already open. You can sign up for it at any time right here. upGrad’s Exclusive Product Management Webinar for you – How to craft GTM Strategy for a Product? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/panel-discussion-on-crafting-gtm-strategy-for-a-product.mp4 Our Top Management Articles Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced] Online Product Management Courses to Kickstart your Career Top 10 Career Options in Business Management in India 8 Crucial Business Management Skills Every Manager Should Have Future Scope of Management: Scope, Salary, Career Opportunities Career Options After MBA – Highest Paying Management Jobs 5 Key Skills Required for Successful Management Career & How To Achieve Those Skills? What is The Nature and Scope of Management? Importance of Management in Every Organisation – [A Complete Guide] Study Product Management Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. Featured Program for you: Design Thinking Certification Program from Duke CE

Product managers come in all forms and flavors. Product management, as a subject, is too vast and generic to fit a single description. Not only this; different types of product managers can also be divided into different groups based on their skills and specializations – the type of product they work on (B2B vs B2C, early, mature), or even at a higher level (whether they are builders, tuners, and innovators). If you are an aspiring Product Manager or have just started your career as one, you must be extremely confused about what is expected of you, which areas you should dive into and what are the things you should hone or work on. So, let me make it simple for you. A product manager is generally expected to work at the intersection of business, UX, and technology. Based on such a generic description, every Product Manager seems to have the same set of skillsets. So how do we classify them? In this post, I am going to classify some Product Managers (going by some of the greatest Product Managers of our times – as inspiration), based on what they bring to the table, a.k.a. their unique strengths. Depending on what your current skill-sets are, you can choose who you want to be like, or aspire to be, and build some really awesome things as a product manager. Check out our management courses to upskill yourself. Check out the video and Infographic below explaining different types of product managers! These are the Different Types of Product Managers: 1) The Tech Product Manager I know my rocket inside out and backward. I can tell you the heat treating temper of the skin material, where it changes, why we chose that material, the welding technique… down to the gnat’s ass. – Elon Musk is a product guy who has been a ‘techie’ throughout his life. He is the chief technology officer at SpaceX, a company that he founded to take on the multi-planetary existence of the human species. Marissa Mayer falls into this category as well. Explore our Popular Management Courses Leadership and Management in New-Age Business Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Human Resource Management Professional Certificate Programme in HR Management and Analytics Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Healthcare Management Executive Management Programme in Strategic Innovation Digital Marketing and Business Analytics Certificate Programme in Finance for Non Finance Executives Certificate Programme in Operations Management and Analytics Global Master Certificate in Integrated Supply Chain Management upGrad's Job Linked Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad Global Professional Certificate in Effective Leadership & Management Advanced General Management Program Strategic Human Resources Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Digital Transformation Cornell Certificate Program Executive Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Management Essentials Management Courses Pitfalls/Traps: These Product Managers try to solve engineering problems, which they are pretty good with. However, this means they can end up working as an engineering manager on the team, rather than a product manager. If this is the type of PM role you see best fit for you, you should focus on defining WHY you are building something, and WHAT you are building. You should leave the ‘HOW to build it’ for engineers. Advantage 1: These PMs work pretty well with engineers and it takes them no time to gain their trust and respect. Advantage 2: They can think through technical products (AWS, recommendation engines) pretty easily. Google/Amazon hires a lot of engineer-turned-product managers. What you should focus on next?: Building a good business sense and user empathy to see the big picture, and defining what products to build. Also, though not true for most, some may struggle with communication skills to get along with cross-functional teams. upGrad’s Exclusive Product Management Webinar for you – How to craft GTM Strategy for a Product? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/panel-discussion-on-crafting-gtm-strategy-for-a-product.mp4 2) The Designer Product Manager Steve Jobs made this category very appealing, didn’t he? Most people remember Steve as the guy who revolutionized six industries. Few people focus on the common thread that runs between those six industries – animated movies, digital publishing, music, personal computers, phones, computing tablets. Steve was the guy who could strongly sense the future needs of consumers and focused (with almost a crazy precision) on design and aesthetics in all these products. Brian Chesky, co-founder, and CEO at Airbnb, and Joe Gebbia (CPO, Airbnb) are other examples of designer Product Managers. Top Management Skills to Learn SL. No Top Management Skills to Learn 1 Consumer Behaviour Online Courses Financial Analysis Courses FinTech Courses Online 2 HR Analytics Courses Online Communication Courses Online Effective Communication Courses 3 Research Methodology Courses Mastering Sales Courses Business Communication Courses 4 Fundamentals of Journalism Courses Economics Masterclass Online Courses Challenge: Many coders idolize Steve Wozniak over Steve Jobs because Jobs didn’t write a single line of code. And this would be a problem when you are starting as a Product Manager because you haven’t been anywhere near the engineering as a designer. Their method of working is quite different from yours. So it becomes harder for both to work together. Same goes for this Product Manager working with other teams, like sales and operations. Advantage: You understand what a good product looks like. You empathize fairly well with the users of the product and understand the difference between stated preference and revealed preference. All these qualities help you make and design much needed, beautiful products.   What you should focus on: Building a business sense is pretty important as this will help you prioritize things. As a designer, you get pretty good at recognizing flaws in a product. Prioritization will help you define what to focus on. Where you should go: Instagram/Facebook/Apple/Tesla would love you.   3) The Business Product Manager Ever saw that fast-talking MBA kid who seems pretty well versed in terminologies of business, operations, and finance? Probably starting off with liberal arts, engineering or economics major and going on to learn elements of business by either doing an MBA or some such. Some people in this category actually learn about business fundamentals by working with/for a fast-growing startup, as well. They are pretty good at communicating with, and understanding, people around them. Ken Norton falls in this category. Pitfalls: Not understanding technology/design very well can lead to conflicts, and it takes hard work to build credibility with designers and coders. Advantage: These are good thinkers and are able to paint and see the big picture to lead teams. What you should focus on: You have a lot of things to do. Start by understanding how tech works and evolves over time. Develop an eye for detail and rigor. You don’t see many of these in product manager roles unless they get an MBA. Our Top Management Articles Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced] Online Product Management Courses to Kickstart your Career Top 10 Career Options in Business Management in India 8 Crucial Business Management Skills Every Manager Should Have Future Scope of Management: Scope, Salary, Career Opportunities Career Options After MBA – Highest Paying Management Jobs 5 Key Skills Required for Successful Management Career & How To Achieve Those Skills? What is The Nature and Scope of Management? Importance of Management in Every Organisation – [A Complete Guide] 4) The Data Product Manager A future role, I must say. With the advent of gaming apps, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning, the role of a Data Product Manager is also emerging. These Product Managers work on data products such as recommendation products, personalization, etc. They are pretty good at reading and finding patterns in data and since data is the key to decision-making in most meetings these days, they gain influence within many teams, over time. You don’t see many Product Managers right now in this category. Sebastian Thrun, who led the integration of big data into robotics, falls in this category. He is the founder of the leading ed-tech startup Udacity. Netflix, Amazon, and Google are companies driven by data algorithms and personalization, and they would love this kind of a Product Manager. Pitfalls: Focusing on data too much leads to losing sight of the big picture sometimes. Advantage: Being equipped with good analytical abilities can help you understand business, sales, and product equally well. What you should focus on: A good idea of user research will help you understand the ‘why’. Clubbing research and quantitative data can work wonders. You should also focus on understanding design elements well so that you can tell a good design from a bad one.   5) The Growth Product Manager Every organization has its own set of growth problems. Some find it hard to generate demand (e-commerce, content) at low cost, others find it difficult to meet supply once they have generated demand (Uber). Growth Product Managers work to solve these problems. This is a rather undefined role and varies a great deal from one organization to another. These Product Managers are generally very strong with data and communication. Further, business acumen helps them prioritize and solve the most important problems first. Chamath Palihapitiya, Head of Growth at Facebook, helped Facebook become the first social network to cross the 500 million user mark and reach more than a billion users. Pitfalls: Focusing too much on metrics leads to losing sight of the big picture here too. There are a lot of ideas you come up with while solving the growing problem for any organization, and the lack of quick experimentation and the right prioritization framework can lead to low impact work. Advantage: A well-defined growth problem gives you the kick to hustle and make a difference. Clear metrics can help you move in the right direction. What you should focus on – User research and psychology. This can help you most while taking the decision of what to build and why. Summing up, let’s list down some of the key and desirable traits of a Product Manager. It looks like you will need the following traits to become a great Product Manager: Good understanding of how the technology works Project Management Business Understanding UI / UX User Empathy & Research People Skills Data / Analytics The best PMs out there understand and work where the interaction of business, design, data, and tech happens. Project management and people skills are the most important aspects of being a good Product Manager since you are working with a lot of people, at any given point in time. That said, you don’t need to be well versed in everything when you are just starting off. So, if you were confused at the beginning of this post, hopefully, I have managed to diminish some of that confusion and some of you may even have figured out which role to aim for, depending on what your current strengths are. If you are an analyst/data scientist, you can learn elements of design and user research to move to a Data Product Manager role. If you are a ‘techie’, a tech Product Manager role would be easiest to mold yourself into. The same follows for a designer and a business person. Marketers tend to like the growth Product Manager role a lot, given the hustle it involves. I hope this post helps you gain some clarity in where you want to go as a product manager.  Don’t just be wowed by this article on Product Management, act on it! Looking to up-skill or sharpen your current skill-sets? Study Product Management Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. upGrad Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management is a great way to kickstart a career in this field. So, what type of Product Manager are you? 

This is a Guest Blog by Udit Khandelwal.  “The website is amazing and the session was awesome! I would love to come back for another round!” – Deepika called out while leaving for home after going through a usability testing session at Zivame. From that moment, Zivame was always going be the first choice for Deepika – a proud homemaker and entrepreneur. What did we do to invoke such surreal emotions in people who shop with us? Explore our Popular Business Management Courses Leadership and Management in New-Age Business Post Graduate Certificate in Product Management Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Human Resource Management Professional Certificate Programme in HR Management and Analytics Executive Post-Graduate Programme in Healthcare Management Executive Management Programme in Strategic Innovation Digital Marketing and Business Analytics Certificate Programme in Finance for Non Finance Executives Certificate Programme in Operations Management and Analytics Global Master Certificate in Integrated Supply Chain Management upGrad's Job Linked Advanced General Management Program from IMT Ghaziabad Global Professional Certificate in Effective Leadership & Management Advanced General Management Program Strategic Human Resources Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Digital Transformation Cornell Certificate Program Executive Leadership Cornell Certificate Program Management Essentials Business Management Courses Well, we involved users at each and every step of product design. In my article How I Changed The Way Women Buy Bras Online I covered how we leveraged user research to discover a new way of shopping for bras. Here, I am going http://notuser.com/how-i-changed-the-way-women-buy-bras-onlineto walk you through the journey wherein we managed to test the design with real users, obtained real insights and implemented course correction. Read: Scope for Product management career and jobs Top Essential Management Skills to Learn SL. No Top Management Skills to Learn 1 Consumer Behaviour Online Certification Financial Analysis Certification FinTech Certification Online 2 HR Analytics Certification Online Communication Courses Online Effective Communication Certification 3 Research Methodology Certification Mastering Sales Certification Business Communication Certification 4 Fundamentals of Journalism Certification Economics Masterclass Online Certification The Game Plan Challenge The resources were limited, the scope was huge and we had to keep churning incrementally enhanced designs. Endeavour The entire website was supposed to be designed and developed from scratch within 5 months. The last month was already reserved for all the testing, deployment and stability-related activities. So we had no more than 120 days to design and develop the new Zivame experience. I had heard this saying somewhere: No shortcuts today; I’m in a hurry – Swiss saying … and I thought, it was just the right time to follow it. We needed a game plan that involved no shortcuts because we couldn’t afford to go down the wrong lane. Hence, we decided to do the following after our early research was over: Lo-Fi Prototypes: Refine the sketches until we were done discovering the loopholes and until we had fixed all the broken flows. Our Top Management Articles Top 7 Career Options in Management To Choose [For Freshers & Experienced] Online Product Management Courses to Kickstart your Career Top 10 Career Options in Business Management in India 8 Crucial Business Management Skills Every Manager Should Have Future Scope of Management: Scope, Salary, Career Opportunities Career Options After MBA – Highest Paying Management Jobs 5 Key Skills Required for Successful Management Career & How To Achieve Those Skills? What is The Nature and Scope of Management? Importance of Management in Every Organisation – [A Complete Guide] Formative Tests: Use paper prototypes to test with whoever you could,whenever you could, even if it was on the lunch table. Hi-Fi Prototypes: Develop a high fidelity interactive prototype, as close to the final product as possible. Summative Tests: Test it with real users and obtain real insights. Beta Tests: One final round of testing, on the actual product, before we handed it over to the world. Iterations: Every test delivered some good news and some bad news (which was good news). We had to prioritize fixing bugs and making enhancements for every iteration. Lesson Usability testing is an ongoing activity that needs proper planning, time and resources. Formative Tests Challenge The initial design was completely untested and development teams were waiting on us. We had to give them something solid, real quick. Endeavor Low fidelity prototypes work beautifully when you want to fail faster. They help you discover flaws in design at an early stage and designers themselves are very open to making changes in the raw design. We did the same at Zivame. Once we were done with white-boarding, we quickly moved on to our tools to create different screens on the computer and took prints to create screen flows. upGrad’s Exclusive Product Management Webinar for you – How to craft GTM Strategy for a Product? document.createElement('video'); https://cdn.upgrad.com/blog/panel-discussion-on-crafting-gtm-strategy-for-a-product.mp4 And then, we simply asked some folks from within the office (who closely matched our target persona Mahi Agarwal) to perform certain scenarios. Whenever they were stuck even for a bit, we knew there was a problem. More than often, they would even give us suggestions, which we took note of. We would then come back and discuss why the users were suggesting what they were, go to the root cause of the problem, and figure our own solution. Sometimes tests not only tell you what’s wrong with design, but they also reveal new opportunities. For example, it was during the formative tests we discovered that users were able to comprehend and interact with notifications. We took that as a green signal and design for a stronger, deeper integration of notifications. Lesson For testing, don’t wait for the final product; go ahead with whatever prototype you can afford and test with whoever you can find. Fail faster. High Fidelity Prototypes Challenge The website had more than 300 unique screens and screen-states. Putting together a click-through was a mammoth task. Endeavor We first set our goals and non-goals before building the prototype. This helped us reduce the scope of prototyping. eg. We wanted to test the new shop-by-experience feature, but were pretty sure we had followed best practices for the checkout, so we decided not to focus on that flow. Next, we evaluated 3 options for building the prototype: Flash – my personal favorite, I know I sound old-school! Marvel App – because everyone is going this way. Invision App – Marvel’s competitor. Now Flash was quickly ruled out because of the overheads involved. Marvel kind of worked, but had limited support for overlays, and my entire design was based on surfaces and overlays. Invision offered me better flexibility, so I went ahead with Invision. Lesson Scoping is critical; even for a prototype. Summative Tests Challenge The test had to be optimized to FAIL the design. Endeavour We decided to write down the script that we were going to use during the usability testing sessions. The critical piece here was to figure out exactly what to test and how. So I listed down my goals and non-goals, based on which I broadly figured out what was I going to test. Initial Mental Model – Expectancy Test Actual Usage – Free Exploration Test Navigation – Performance Test Affordance – Visual Affordance Test Task Flow – Performance Test Sentiment – Semantic Differential Process Once that was done, I quickly mapped a technique against each line item and then moved on to the modules that I wanted to focus on. After this I moved on to defining the task flow of individual scenarios. I didn’t write down the language of the scenarios as I didn’t want to sound stiff. I have shared the script below on Slideshare. View this on SlideShare Lesson Use a hammer for the nails, but a screw-driver for the screws. Recruitment Challenge Finding women (in India) who’d agree to participate in the testing of a Lingerie website. Endeavour We wanted women who closely resembled Zivame’s target persona Mahi Agarwal. We took to social media and made an announcement. We asked women to help Zivame in building a great shopping experience for women! A lot of women came forward and we received a good number of responses. Not only this, they also invited their friends to participate. And kudos to forward-thinking women like Deepika, Subha and Aastha, who went a step further and agreed to put a face to our participants. Deepika, Entrepreneur & Homemaker Subha, Blogger at dolphindives.in Aastha Chaudhary, Homemaker We were in a good position to screen and recruit our participants. Women who expressed interest, had to fill the participant recruitment form. After a quick screening, we shortlisted the participants and gave them a call to schedule the session with them. Lesson Finding real users isn’t that difficult. You just have to do it the right way! Suggested Reading Dragonfly Effect, Jennifer Aaker & Andy Smith Usability Test Sessions Challenge Talking to women about a website that sells bras. Endeavour On the D-day, we were well prepared with systems set up, printed copies of the script, the team was ready to perform their roles and the participants were to be greeted warmly. We started the sessions by making the participants feel comfortable. We began with some chit-chat and brief introductions. We emphasized how important their contribution was and asked them to not worry about hurting our feelings and give honest feedback. In order to avoid them sharing their bra size details with us, we made sure we told them to assume their size was 34C. I think they liked the idea. We made sure they believed: You are not being tested, we are! Invariably, every user would smile at this moment, and we knew, we had managed to make them comfortable. Throughout the session, we made sure, the focus was on the tasks (and hence on design) and not on the products.  That’s when we would begin the flow (as mentioned in the PPT). We discovered some pretty interesting things during these tests. To our surprise, none of the users had trouble figuring the ‘shop’ menu, which was a big change from our previous design. However, users were confused when they reached the sub-menu and we knew it needed to be simplified (which we did later). We also discovered a basic issue with title bars of our surfaces. Users were facing difficulty going back and closing the surfaces. Again, we resolved this issue in our next iteration. One of the key findings was about the sticky buttons at the bottom of the surfaces. We realized that sometimes the button used to break the user flow as users were clicking on it without reading the labels or they were misinterpreting the labels. We found alternates to such situations. All in all, the users proved to be very helpful! Lesson Users are humans, if you treat them well, they will be very helpful. The Bug Bash Challenge We needed to make sure if the final product was behaving as designed and intended, and we were running out of time! Endeavour There is always a fair degree of difference between the actual product and the implementation. When the Zivame beta product website was ready, we wanted to make sure that the product was behaving as expected. We wanted to see if users were comfortable interacting with the UI controls we had implemented and wanted to see it working in the real world. So, we opened it up for all the Zivame employees, and conducted a 3 hour bug-logging Marathon, which we called Bug Bash. We issued a coupon that would work only on the beta website for 3 hours and asked all the employees to make use of the coupon and log whatever bug that they faced in the Bug Bash Form. We divided them into different teams and announced prizes for the top 3 teams. The plan worked and we received 223 responses from different teams. It took us 2 days to go through the entire list and figure which ones were genuine. Most of the bugs filed were duplicate or known issues, but we discovered 12 new bugs (of which 3 were related to UI). This gave us a high degree of confidence to release the beta externally! Zivame Bug Bash Responses Lesson Testing never hurts and it can be done at any stage. Kudos to the women, who helped us all along the way in building such a fantastic shopping experience at Zivame! Study Product Management Courses online from the World’s top Universities. Earn Masters, Executive PGP, or Advanced Certificate Programs to fast-track your career. Featured Program for you: Design Thinking Certification Program from Duke CE