Product management is the practice of planning, developing, marketing, and continuous improvement of a company’s product or products.

The idea of product management first appeared in the early 30s with a memo written by the president of Procter & Gamble, Neil H. McElroy, where he introduced the idea of a product manager — a “brand man” completely responsible for a brand and instrumental to its growth.

Decades later, in the 1980s, modern product management started to take shape with the explosive growth of the software market. Since then, product management has been closely connected to and typically found in companies creating software.

What Is Product Management?

The main objective of product management is the development of a new product. 

Its ultimate goal is making sure you’re building the right product and building the product right.

Most notably, product management means linking the development team on the one side with marketing, sales, and customer success teams on the other side, while ensuring the process is aligned with the business vision.

Product management should translate business objectives into engineering

requirements and explain product functionalities and limitations to commercial teams responsible for marketing, sales, and customer communication.

Inbound Vs. Outbound Product Management

Since product management is such a large concept, organizations usually split responsibilities across departments. That’s why we can differentiate between inbound and outbound product management.

Inbound product management involves market research, industry trends, and competitive analysis as well as the overall strategy and product roadmap. Inbound product management responsibilities include:

• Customer research and insights
• Business care analysis
• Positioning
• Product roadmapping
• Market requirements and prioritization
• Whole product definition
• Differentiation and desirability
• Features/cost/schedule trade-offs
• Developing product requirements with engineering and UX
• Competitive analysis (product and market position)
• Beta programs

Outbound product management focuses on product marketing — branding, messaging, positioning, product launches, PR, advertising, etc.

Outbound product management responsibilities include:

• Launch and marketing plans
• Features and benefits
• Messaging by market and role
• Training
• Sales tools
• Product launch
• Marketing program
• Success stories
• Market analysis
• Competitive analysis (price, promotion, and place)

Roles in Product Management

The concept of product management includes many different roles such as chief product officer, director of product management, product manager, product owner, and product marketing manager, to name just a few.

It’s important to keep in mind that product management and project management are two different roles.

There can be one person or a whole team in charge of product management. The number of people involved will largely depend on the size of the company. 

In some cases (for example, in growing startups) one person takes on several different roles — acting as a CEO, product manager, and product marketing manager.

Product Manager’s Roles And Responsibilities

A product team without a product manager is like an orchestra without a conductor. Even a group of phenomenal virtuosos would be completely uncoordinated and sound discordant without a conductor to guide and synchronize them.

Much like a conductor, a product manager is supposed to lead a cross-functional product team and coordinate product creation from strategy to execution. A product manager needs to be the leader who will ensure that everyone on the team is working toward the same goal.

To be able to handle such a complex and versatile role, a great product manager should be knowledgeable in several areas, most notably technology, business, and user experience.

What Does a Product Manager Do?

A product manager is responsible for setting a strategic plan for product creation and making sure that the plan is executed. In other words, a product manager is in charge of the following:

• Conducting market research, competitor analysis, and customer research
• Setting a product vision and strategy that states the unique value of the product
• Creating a product roadmap with a clearly defined action plan, defining the responsibilities and the timeline
• Coordinating among design, engineering, and marketing teams
• Owning the Daily Scrum and Sprint Planning meetings, ensuring that all developers understand the user stories and are clear on what needs to be built
• Defining and analyzing product metrics and analytics

Put even more simply, as a product manager, you will have three main responsibilities:

1. Set the strategy and long-term vision
2. Share this strategy with all the stakeholders
3. Oversee the execution of the strategy

Inside A Product Manager’s Mind

A great product manager should be the go-to person for all questions related to the product and the linking element of the whole team. That’s why they need to be as transparent as possible in the prioritizing process.

Although the product manager will have the final say, it’s important to keep all stakeholders in the loop when it comes to making decisions.

Having all the data necessary in one place – or one tool – will make it much easier for product managers to explain why they are prioritizing certain features over others and why they sometimes have to say no.

What Software Should a Product Manager Use?

To be productive in the role of a product manager, you should find the right tools that will make your job easier. Nowadays, there are many product management tools that help you develop your whole product strategy and keep all information in one place.

Here are some product management software features that come in handy:

• User tracking/analysis — One of the best ways to get insight into your users’ behavior and the way they react to your product. This way, you can continually improve the product to better fit user needs.
• Customer survey tools — Direct customer feedback is invaluable, as you can learn all about the things your users love or hate about a product. Some product management software lets you create survey templates and easily send survey forms to your users.
• Prototyping — Get your product on the right track from the first step. Create a prototype you can easily share with the stakeholders.
• Roadmapping — A roadmapping tool helps you define features and plan releases, track development status and progress, plan and allocate development resources, and collaborate with your product team.12
• Task management — Assign tasks to team members and follow task progress in real time, define and prioritize tasks, and streamline your whole task management process.
• Data management/sharing — A quality product management tool makes it simple to upload and share documents and data with your team members.
• Instant messaging — Be able to quickly contact anyone on the team and get the information you need as soon as possible.

To learn more about the right tools to use, you can read our review of the 20 best product management software for everything from small businesses to enterprises.