Product Management in Action

In his book Inspired, Marty Cagan describes the job of the Product Manager (PM) as discovering a product that is valuable, usable and feasible. Similarly, Martin Eriksson has always defined product management as the intersection between business, technology, and user experience.

For most people, however, a PM is a sort of mistical creature 🧙 that can be found near a tech team, sales and other functions, unable to explain its own existence. And this is what we want to clarify with this page.

A product manager is the person who:

• Identifies the customer need and the larger business objectives that a product or feature will fulfill
• Articulates what success looks like for a product
• Rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality

However, this is a role not traditionally present in businesses, and therefore still defining and establishing itself.

In terms of responsibilities, the PM will spend their time:

• Understanding and representing user needs
• Monitoring the market and developing competitive analyses
• Defining a vision for a product
• Prioritizing product features and capabilities
• Creating a shared brain across larger teams to empower independent decision-making

But mostly ➜ Stakeholder management: Talking to people and aligning them around the vision for the product is one of the main things a PM will do during their day.