How Does A Company’s View On Product Leadership, Technology And Empowerment Play A Part In Product Success?

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product management consulting firms

The most popular topic these days is the “product culture.” Readers are curious to know what a healthy product culture means. Some experts define it as an environment where product management is practiced; it is valued by the business and where Product Managers can thrive and grow. Quite simply, “product culture” is a place that allows you to perform all your job responsibilities and deliver products that solve consumer problems.

There are several ways to achieve this, and it’s more than culture. Several companies are successfully known as product organizations and have vastly used different cultures and strategies to develop. PMs have successfully thrived and brought outrageously successful products to market. Such companies understand the value of product management and consistently deliver outstanding results, thus helping their business grows successfully.

Undoubtedly, there will be a vast difference in product culture across the different strong organizations. Where Google is a heavily engineering-oriented mindset, on the other hand, Airbnb has design-driven philosophy. But they have certain features in common. What are they? Marty Cagan and Chris Jones have discussed three consistent themes in their book named EMPOWERED: Ordinary People, Extraordinary Products that can help identify winning product organizations. These include:

  • Technology Role: Several companies consider technology a necessary expense, while strong product companies do not view technology as an expense. It is the business for them.
  • Strong Product Leadership: In most organizations, true product leadership is largely missing in action, and there is no strong product strategy. On the other hand, in strong product companies, the product managers or leaders are the most impactful leaders.
  • Powerful Product Teams: In most companies, product teams are not empowered; they are more of feature teams. All they do is implement features and projects. They are not held accountable for results. In contrast, strong product companies give product teams problems that they need to solve rather than features to build.

Though having all three of them doesn’t automatically result in a winning product organization, it is correlated with weak product organizations if any of these features are missing. It also illustrates why it is difficult to change companies from within and why several Product Managers fail to do so. PMs should be able to change how their company perceives the role of technology by themselves. Or they should have the authority to install product leadership into the executive ranks. Being one of the trusted product management consulting firms, we suggest to Product Managers that it’s better to leave the company if they think they are not free to impose product-related changes in their organization.

When searching for a new job position, you can ask questions mentioned below from the new organization. Make sure you ask these questions with enthusiasm rather than annoyance. It will help you know a lot about the company and its product culture.

Questions To Ask To Evaluate The Role Of Technology

  1. Do they consider technology as a differentiator or a product and a means to an end while describing their unique strategic advantage?
  2. Do they involve engineers and technologists in the interview process for PMs?
  3. How do other technology and product processes relate to the organization?  
  4. How does the company explain the purpose of the technology team?
  5. How is the technical organization described? This can help you learn a lot by using terms like engineering vs. R&D or “IT” vs. “cost center.”
  6. What are the biggest concerns of the executives with the technology organization?
  7. What is the role of PMs in their organization?

Questions to Ask To Identify Product Leadership

  1. To whom does the product team report – a senior product leader who reports directly to the CEO or the PM?
  2. Are there any product leaders on the executive positions or board of directors?
  3. What are the characteristics that the company value in product leaders?
  4. Who owns the product roadmap – is it a command-and-control function of sales or general management?
  5. Are senior product managers considered amongst the most powerful executives at the company?
  6. Did they let you spend enough time with product leaders during the interview process?

Questions To Ask TO Find Empowered Product Teams

  1. How does the company describe its “product team” when asked?
  2. Where do projects and initiatives come from – seniors mandated or elsewhere in the corporation?  
  3. While describing the role of product management, does it sound more like a tactical project manager or factory floor supervisor?
  4. Is there any track record of Product Manager’s growing in the company and taking over executive leadership jobs?
  5. How is success measured for a product, and who decides the criteria?
  6. Who is in charge of interaction with customers and users and producing learned information?

We certainly don’t mean that you can’t find success or enjoy working as a Product Manager at companies that don’t follow three benchmarks. Many PMs succeed in firms that don’t consider technology. But if you seek product-oriented culture or feel like something is missing in your current job as a product manager, this framework can prove helpful.

Product Manager Hire: A Classic Article Defining the role of a Product Manager

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hire product managers

Many say that Visionaries are the best product managers. They are in charge of a product’s success and the cross-functional team to improve it. It is a critical organizational job, particularly in technology firms. You define the strategy, plan, and features for a product or a product line. The Product marketing, forecasting, and profit and loss (P&L) tasks may also be part of a product manager’s job description.

What Is The Job Of A Product Manager?

Product managers are responsible for leading and making strategic product choices. While product managers have been referred to as “mini-CEOs,” it is more accurate to describe you as the product leaders at the crossroads of business, technology, and user experience (UX). The role encompasses a wide range of operations, from strategic to tactical, and it provides critical cross-functional leadership, particularly amongst engineering, marketing, sales, and support teams. 

You examine market and competition situations before sketching out a distinct product vision and provide distinctive value in response to client needs. It’s energizing to work on a new product. You will build with conviction and find profound satisfaction in your position as a product manager if you feel a genuine sense of duty and devotion to your project.

Product Managers Can Be Of Various Types

Product management jobs come in a variety of forms. Each company will define positions differently, depending on its offers, clients, and product strategy. The bigger the firm and the more products it has, the more product leaders it will need.

Product managers are frequently promoted from marketing, sales, engineering, and project management jobs. What you did before will provide you with some of the most helpful experiences as a product manager. An engineer who transitions to the post of technical product manager, for example, brings a thorough understanding of the product development process. Your previous experience will aid you in efficiently communicating with the development team and writing precise product requirements.

A Product Manager’s Responsibilities

Let’s focus on the essential responsibilities of a product manager. Despite the broad nature of your job, your daily responsibilities can usually be divided into six categories:

1. Develop A Strategy

You are in charge of defining your product’s vision and strategic direction at the highest level. It would help if you adequately described the business case for a particular program or feature so that your team understands why it is being developed. Strategic planning puts out significant investment areas to prioritize what matters most to meet your product’s objectives. You’re also in charge of the product roadmap, visually representing what you’ll produce and when.

2. Identifying And Defining Releases

Product managers integrate product strategy into work plans, determining what will be built and when it will be released. It is true regardless of the development process employed by your technical team. You’re in charge of the release process and cross-functional dependencies, as well as all of the actions that go into bringing new products, features, and functionality to market. It entails bridging gaps across various firm departments and synchronizing necessary personnel, such as marketing, sales, and customer service.

3. Putting Ideas To The Test

For a successful product, every company wants improved ideas. Product managers are in charge of gathering, creating, and curating ideas that will benefit customers. You control the company’s idea management process and decide which pictures should be added to your backlog to advance the product plan. Product owners also ensure that customer input and requests are factored into the product planning and development processes. You update your clients, partners, and internal teammates on the status of ideas they contributed.

4. Setting Attributes In Order Of Importance

Product managers rank features against strategic goals and initiatives to determine their priority. You’ll have to make difficult trade-offs based on the value a new feature will bring to your customers and your company. You’re also in charge of setting feature needs and the user experience you want to achieve. You collaborate closely with engineering on technical specifications and ensure that teams have all they need to deliver a complete product to market.

5. Creating And Disseminating Strategic Plans

As a product manager, you should create and update one of your product roadmap’s most powerful communication tools. A product roadmap depicts how your product will fulfill your business goals and aids in project management. You can make various roadmaps based on who you’re presenting to and what you’re trying to say. Executives are more interested in high-level planning, whereas engineers and designers need to know the exact scheduling and sequencing of critical tasks.

6. Progress Analysis And Reporting

Great product managers are obsessed with outcomes, both for consumers and the company as a whole. To understand how your product functions, you need a complete picture of progress toward goals.

Advice For Aspiring Product Managers

The scope of your responsibilities is intimidating, starting as a product manager or having moved into a new role. There’s a lot to do, so relax and enjoy it. Here are some pointers to help you succeed as a product manager.

  • Begin With A Strategy

Every product decision should be based on a strategy early in the development process. As a result, avoid making snap decisions. Examine the current product goals to ensure you understand what you’re attempting to accomplish. A product management consultant will help to make the strategy.

  • Understand About Your Customers

Successful product managers must have empathy. Spend time obtaining to know the issues that you help consumers with. Attend sales calls, schedule time to meet with genuine customers, and examine all the data and information accessible to you. You can make a lot of progress in the first month by being curious.

  • Make Connections With Your Coworkers

You won’t be able to attain victory on your own. Product managers rely on the development team and product designers to construct the right product. And you rely on marketing and sales to bring it to market successfully. So make genuine ties with your coworkers; solid relationships generate trust and improve communication.

Finally! Please Take Your Time

Growing into a new role and finding long-term success takes time and patience. Be prepared to repeat the same lectures and ask a lot of questions. Allow yourself the time you need to establish yourself as your company’s go-to product expert. PALARINO PARTNERS helps to provide product managers with the chance to make significant contributions to your organization and customers. Pick the PALARINO PARTNERS for product managers to plan the strategy, specify features, and create attractive roadmaps.

List of Product Management Roles and Hierarchy

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Job titles, seniority, and hierarchy in product management are all a bit hazy. It makes it challenging to compare jobs, plan your career, and hire the best people. In this blog, we will go through the product management levels, giving you an overview of each product job and some valuable resources.

Product Management Roles

Levels Of Product Managers

Most successful product teams and organizations have developed a standard that can be used as a blueprint for your own. Let’s have a look at some examples:

1. Associate Product Manager

It is an entry-level product position for someone who has never worked in the industry before. It also has a different meaning in the context of an Associate Product Manager (APM) program. A recent graduate is the typical APM. The goal is to grow these applicants into full-time employment through a combination of training and hands-on experience with real projects, similar to most apprenticeships.

2. Junior Product Manager

Although a Junior Product Manager is new to the profession, they do not need as much hands-on experience as an Associate Product Manager needs. They operate with a product development team on their own, sometimes on a smaller product or area, and are led and mentored by a Senior Product Manager. A Junior Product Manager often has some previous job experience and can come from any background. The most prevalent backgrounds are engineering, design, and business. Some of the top product managers have come from customer service, quality assurance, or business analyst positions.

3. Product Manager

A product manager’s most popular job title can cover a wide range of experience, responsibilities, and talents. In general, this works alone, manages a product development team, and is in charge of a product or customer journey. Because it’s the most prevalent title, it’s crucial to think about what product they’re in control of. For example, a product manager for Facebook’s news feed, which affects billions of people, is likely to be more senior and experienced than a product manager jobs for a startup.

4. Senior Product Manager

A Senior Product Manager performs the same roles and responsibilities as a Product Manager, but with an old title to represent their contributions, the relative importance of their product, or the fact that they mentor junior product managers. It is a hybrid function in some organizations. The Senior Product Manager works directly with a product and is also responsible for line management.

5. Product Lead / Lead Product Manager

It is a newer position, usually held by a Senior Product Manager in charge of its most important product. It might range from a Senior Product Manager to a Vice President of Product. The difference is that they are not in charge of different product managers; instead, they are excellent product managers who want to remain hands-on and delegate people management to others. Recognizing who excels at leadership and creating incredible goods is equally vital and beneficial to a company.

6. Product Director / Group Product Manager

The position of a Product Director or Group Product Manager begins to shift. It progresses from an individual contributor who owns a product and works directly with engineering and design teams to someone who has taken a step back from the day-to-day to lead other product managers and align the company. People management soft skills become a vital element of the work – managing people is even more difficult than managing products!

7. VP Product / Head of Product

It is similar to a Director, although it is more typical in larger organizations with multiple products and management layers or startups as the most senior product person. This position entails overseeing the work of other product managers. It is known as a Head of Product in many firms, but I’m not a fan of that title because there’s no way to elevate a Head of Product because they’re already the Head!

8. CPO / Chief Product Officer

A Chief Product Officer (CPO) is an organization’s most senior product executive. They frequently oversee many product management teams and represent products in the C-suite or management team. They’re in charge of overall product strategy and alignment both inside their teams and throughout the company.

The VP Product is in charge of the team, processes, and getting things done, whereas the CPO is in order of the organization’s product vision, architecture, and overall alignment.

There Is No Such Thing As A One-Size-Fits-All Solution

Of course, most businesses do not require all of these stages, how this will fit into your business. A single Product Manager may be assigned to a startup. A handful of Product Managers might report to a Head of Product/VP of Product as your company grows. Only when the firm and its product line expand, you will need to consider adding more levels. Like everything else in the product, these team structures and groups should be aligned with consumer demands. You may then incentivize and organize teams under your company’s objectives.

To Sum It Up!.

The whole structure should allow you and your teams to explore the following questions: Do your team’s titles appropriately represent their jobs? Are they clear enough, so job seekers looking at your open positions understand what you’re looking for and if the work is right for them? PALARINO PARTNERS, having clear and consistent job titles for product management will help all better understand the professions, responsibilities, and groups. Think free to reach us via visiting our website.

What Makes a Good Product Manager: Must-Have Qualities In Any Shortlisted Candidate

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Product management is a widely growing field. Many candidates are finding this field appealing. If your organization has shortlisted the candidates to be great product managers, it is important for you to know the must-have qualities of a good product manager.  

Here are the must-have qualities to look for in a good product manager, as per the product management consultants. Let’s find out.

product management consultants

Passionate for Products

Product managers must be in love with the products. They should have the ability to recognize outstanding products and admire them. They should be able to tell you about the product, why some customers love it, and why some are not giving good reviews.  

It is essential for a product manager to look at what needs of the customers are still not fulfilled and how they can take steps to improve the product. Depicting passion about the products always results in the development of something great.

Strategic Thinker

A product manager is also sometimes called mini-CEO. He should be able to understand the current product strategy to see how it aligns with the overall strategy of the company. Additionally, understanding the product vision and knowing how it will generate value for the customers is also important. 

The shortlisted candidate for a great product manager must know the unique selling proposition of the company to clearly articulate the strategies. In short, your company needs a long-term roadmap to build good products. This all will help in creating a winning product that will surely delight the customers. 

Build Excellent User Experience

In the competitive world, building an excellent user experience is the need of the hour, and the product managers hold a key part in it. They should know to design interaction diagrams and test them to build emotive visual designs to fulfill this. Many of the teams don’t have the comfort of having a visual designer and interaction designer. But the product manager fulfills the responsibilities of an interaction designer and appoints someone else to do visual design. 

Even with the presence of an interaction designer, a product manager should perform to the top of his ability to demand the very best. He should hold the skill of telling when the design is good and when it is bad. Having the ability to see if the product is meeting the demands of the customers in the most efficient way and if all the interactions are going well together in a logical manner is what makes a good product manager.

Empathize With The Customers

It is very difficult to find a product manager who has relevant experience in your industry. But always hire the one who deeply empathizes with your target audience. You have to pay extra attention if you are developing a consumer product. Check whether the product manager knows who the target market of the product is or not. Therefore, a candidate should empathize with the customers and respect them. 

Ability to Prioritize

Being able to prioritize which work to do first is one of the vital qualities of a product manager. Once the product manager knows the art of prioritization, your company can make a good mark in the market. The product manager should form the product strategy with the individual features and prioritize them accordingly to acquire the maximum returns. 

Leadership Qualities

Building and developing a product is a collaborative process, so a product manager should be of a collaborative nature. No wonder the product manager is the leader of the product, but still, most people in the development team do not report directly to him. Furthermore, various functional groups and consumers show product requirements, and these all requirements are equally important. Therefore, a product manager should hold power to inspire others rather than be dictatorial. 

He should be able to tell why he is choosing a particular feature over others for any product. He should be confident and assertive while stating his reasons for choosing a particular thing. 

Leadership qualities

Execution

Product managers should know how to execute the plan. In other words, they need to get things done. There are a million things to do before shipping a product, and the product manager should be an expert in doing all those things. He needs to write marketing copies, edit HTMLs, to name a few. Many times, he is the one who has to do PR also. Thus, he should go beyond his limits to make the product a grand success. 

To Sum It Up!

It is needless to say that a good product manager must have the above-mentioned qualities. At the end of the day, the responsibility of making things happen relies on him. 

PALARINO PARTNERS believe in building world-class product management teams. This will not only reduce the cost of mis-hire but also makes your product a grand success in your organization. So, without ado, contact for further assistance, and they will march your organization towards victory. 

Why Is It Important To Create Empowered Product Teams?

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It’s not simple to talk about empowered product teams, so let’s start by defining what an empowered product team is and how to tell if you have one. Many businesses want to adopt empowered product teams, yet they are frequently misunderstood or poorly handled. Being responsible for the success of a product is what ownership entails. Do you have business outcomes for success metrics, or are your success measures focused on output? In an output-driven society, delivering thousands of lines of code that add nothing to the bottom line would be considered a success.

Even if you worked together and bargained with stakeholders to come up with this list, it’s still an output-driven strategy. Your job in that environment is to deliver these features, but no one can know ahead of time if they are the proper features to construct at the time.

In an empowered product team, the product manager consults with stakeholders on the most critical and urgent challenges to tackle, rather than on the specific features to create over the year. It concentrates everyone’s thoughts on the result. Your understanding of what works and doesn’t grow as you build, release, and measure iteratively. As a result, the plan must be a live document that provides maximum transparency to all stakeholders.

What Are The Benefits Of Empowered Teams?

As a product manager, this sounds wonderful and “empowering,” but do stakeholders know what needs best because they are the specialists in their fields? Yes, they are, but they are only familiar with their particular business area, and none of them are likely to be digital professionals.

Empowered Teams

The sales unit will ask you to build things that sales leads have placed an order for. To better target customers, the marketing team will ask for personalization. The list goes on. If all of your ideas are focused on the product’s major problems and how to solve them, you’ll get better results.

A product team with complete authority to develop solutions to the agreed-upon questions challenges may better judge what to construct. The four most important questions are: 

  • Is this useful to customers in the sense that it solves a genuine problem for them?
  • Is this a realistic business strategy? Does this fit within our company’s parameters, or may it, for example, have tax or legal ramifications or harm our brand in any way? Stakeholders are needed to provide their knowledge.
  • Is it viable from a technological standpoint? Do we have the technical know-how and platforms in place to accomplish this at a reasonable cost?
  • Is it possible to use it? Answer this question with design skills and usability testing.

As you can see, finding the proper answers to these four questions necessitates the participation of the whole product team and stakeholders who can add their experience.

As a result, the word “empowered” relates not only to product ownership but also to the ability of each team member within a product team to contribute to the identification. The best solution for a product manager is to make it easier for stakeholders to collaborate and for the team to find answers. Your involvement is critical in achieving positive results, but it does not include telling your team what to construct.  Product Manager Jobs will make the business more convenient, and the product manager should be a very responsible person.

How to Build a Self-Assured Team?

Many businesses want product management to play a more significant role in their operations. It is described as “digital transformation,” “agile transformation,” “business agility,” and even “customer value streams.” It acknowledges that advising development teams on what to construct does not always result in good results.

Self-Assured Team

When forming agile teams with an agile product owner, many firms even adopt product management for the first time. However, establishing or transitioning to a fully empowered product team is not simple. Stakeholders may be apprehensive at first because they may believe that some of their influence over what is built is being taken away. It is critical to engage them regularly to demonstrate that their subject matter knowledge is still highly appreciated and contribute to the priorities set.

In addition, agile product owners in existing teams may be very junior individuals who are only doing their tasks.

When it comes to making judgments about what to develop, the agile literature is silent on the role of an agile PO. It might be intimidating for a PO to take on the product manager role and assuming fundamental responsibility for the product, requiring training and coaching.

Empowering teams requires management support as the product is raised into a more senior role in this model. Communication with stakeholders is critical, but demonstrating is much more vital than telling. One technique is to agree on a small but significant problem, set a success indicator, and quickly tackle the problem with a creative (small) solution.

It may swiftly demonstrate the problem – solution – success metric loop and build trust.

It will take a long time for stakeholders and management to recognize the benefits of this strategy and learn to trust you if you start with a comprehensive website revamp or technology migration as your first challenge to tackle as an empowered team.

Conclusion

To conclude, many companies will claim to have a strong product management discipline, but this isn’t always the case when looking behind the scenes. Those that succeed are often more creative, quick, high-quality, agile, and adaptable than their competitors. In today’s fast-paced world, all of these are necessary. PALARINO PARTNERS excels in putting together top-notch product management teams. It will ensure that your product is a massive success in your company.  PALARINO PARTNERS will march your company to triumph.

The Golden Rule for Hiring the Best Product Managers

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Product Managers are the lifeblood of companies. They lead teams to develop desirable products that help grow businesses. Product Managers are in charge of managing their team’s process, coordinating with other departments like engineering and marketing, and creating a product strategy for company success. Here’s how you can identify if candidates possess these skills so that the best Product Manager for your team.

1.) Look for Group Product Managers who have experience with at least two or more years doing a similar type of role - Product Management or Product Consulting

The Group Product Manager is the person in charge of managing product development for a group of products and overseeing how engineers work on projects throughout their life cycle. The GMP has strong leadership skills as well as an understanding of information security measures within your company or organization because they coordinate with multiple teams to ensure all deliverables are completed successfully while also following agile practices like cross-functional team meetings between designers, developers & project managers alike.

The tasks that need to be accomplished by these Managers include: evaluating requirements from clients (customers), designing user interfaces, wireframing front end design processes of apps such as sketching out concepts using sketches, paper prototypes, digital wireframes, and creating mock-ups of various views (interaction design), gathering requirements, synthesizing feedback from stakeholders to prioritize future enhancements (e.g., by ranking them in priority).

Most commonly, GMPs will work with other company members to identify user needs early on, which can be used for brainstorming sessions for potential product releases. They are also in charge of creating support materials to educate customers about the product. Once it is released, they may be required to provide training or handbooks on how to use the system they have developed.

2.) Group Product Managers will bring your company ideas they think would add value

Group Product Managers will bring your company ideas they think would add value. They should be detail-oriented with strong analytical ability and problem-solving abilities. They can also do project management in various scenarios, not just one type or area! They need leadership skills that allow them to cross-functionally collaborate within their own team while understanding information security on products internally – all without losing sight of how these pieces fit together at some level.

group product manager

3.) Group Product Management is not usually part of one specific team

Product managers in companies strive to be the face of their brand and often take on multiple hats. Group Product Management should not only involve managing one specific team but rather overseeing many teams across various parts or features within an organization’s product lineup, such as back-end coding. Jubilee Systems have found that group product manager roles are common among large tech firms. They allow for greater visibility into different areas, which leads these types of organizations to achieve better cohesion between departments when there is overlap between responsibilities – something critical if you want stellar product development.

Building strategies, processes, and teams that work well together is a crucial component of building a company’s entire product lineup and will require leaders who can take a bird’s eye view of the business. Multidisciplinary group product managers are more successful at assessing opportunities within their particular projects or area while simultaneously planning for future product initiatives within the broader company.

The most important thing in this role is to identify where the organization is heading, the patterns of its individual parts, and how they need to evolve together to get there. This part can be very intuitive but requires high emotional intelligence, good problem-solving skills, and solid analytical skills.

4.) Group Product Management has a direct impact on the success or failure of a product so take your time when interviewing potential employees

Group Product Management has a direct impact on the success or failure of your product. Group Product Managers must be able to own an end-to-end process. They should work across many different teams, including technical and non-technical groups, for their group’s performance appraisal goals, with leadership skills essential if more than one person fills this position at once!

The right people make sure that you’re getting everything out of every line item by keeping an eye on progress reports from other departments as well those submitted independently while also monitoring deliverables themselves. Whether we need them done sooner rather than later always remains up in the air here but knowing where things stand is critical because only then will any future conversations have meaning.

This is the path of least resistance for Group Product Managers! It’s important to note that cross-functional teams, coordination between stakeholders and suppliers, and other elements required for successful product development start with these two people.

5.) Group Product Management is high pressure, so find out what motivates each candidate before you hire them

In a recent article, Forbes noted that Google is one of the companies leading the pack in hiring Group Product Managers. It seems counterintuitive to simply assume these managers can be easily motivated by money and status, so why are tech companies so eager to hire them? To better understand what type of person excels at Group Product Management, it’s essential to look at what drives them.

golden rule

Conclusion

Hiring a Product Manager is challenging, but it can be made easier by following some simple steps. Hiring people who are qualified for the job and have experience with Product Management will ensure that you hire someone who knows what they’re doing. You should also consider hiring someone with a different background because being around people with diverse knowledge sets may yield fresh ideas about doing things differently. If all else fails, just remember this golden rule – find out what motivates each candidate, so you know what will keep them motivated at work (i.e., pay attention to their strengths).

Should You be a Product Management Consultant or a Product Manager?

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Product Management is a difficult job. It’s more than just managing the product; it’s about building relationships with stakeholders, conducting research on the market, and figuring out how to get buy-in for new products. And that’s on top of all the other work you do as a Product Manager! If you’re feeling frazzled from your current role or looking for a change in direction, should you be a Product Management Consultant or Product Manager? That depends upon what type of person you are. In this blog, we will explore both options and advice to help make your decision easier. 

1. Product Management Consultant

The Product Management Consultant role is very new. Product Managers are still struggling to figure out what Product Management really is, so Product Management consultants are even more of a mystery. Product Managers are hoping for help on projects but are wary of consulting firms who might take their position in the market too seriously and try to poach their employees. Product managers also know that they’re not experts at everything. They’re experts at Product Management, but maybe not marketing or design or business development. What happens if you bring someone in who tries to tell them how it’s done? Product Management Consultants can offer an external point-of-view which can be valuable, especially when working with smaller teams or inexperienced Product Managers. Product Management Consultants can also help Product Managers with the Product Marketing aspect of the role (and Product Marketers will often need help, too!)

Paulina Sliwa is Product Management Director at SAS Global services and leads client-facing Product Management consulting engagements in New York City. Product Management clients hire Product Management consultants when they are in a bottleneck,  when there’s not enough capacity to do everything that needs to get done, or when their employees are inexperienced in Product Management. Paulina grew her Product Management consulting practice by bringing in experts on specific topics like UX Design, Mobile Advertising, Quantitative Analysis, etc., so that her clients wouldn’t have to go outside of their company for Product Management expertise. Product management consultants specialize in Product Management and Product Marketing, but Product Managers often need help with other business areas too. Product Managers are currently responsible for all aspects of Product Management, so it makes sense that they would eventually reach a bottleneck where they cannot do everything themselves.

“As Product Management becomes more specialized, product managers will need to lean on outside resources, including Product Management Consultants.” – Paulina Sliwa, Product Management Director SAS Global services.

product management consultants

2. Skills Needed To Be A Successful Product Management Consultant

Product Management Consulting is still new enough that there aren’t many guidelines on who the best candidates are or what qualifications you should have to get started. One consulting firm requires Product Management consultants to have at least three years of Product Management experience, and at least five years in Product Management is preferred. Product Management Consulting is a great way to develop your Product Management skills and expertise as well as build relationships with Product Managers across different industries.

Patti Johnson, President ProductCamp DC and Product Marketing Manager for Loudoun County Public Schools, has been a Product Management Consultant since 2013. Her first client was the Director of Product at a major social network — someone she had previously worked under. She continued her work there because she really enjoyed the product strategy work and wanted to shape the company’s direction. It also allowed her to develop her personal brand. When you’re starting out, you need to be thinking about how Product Management consulting can help your career. Product Management consultants are hired for their expertise, which means they have a responsibility to share what they know with Product Managers. Product Management Consulting has the potential to open doors to higher-level Product Management roles at any company you’re consulting for.

“As Product Management increasingly becomes more specialized, Product Managers will need access to subject matter experts outside of their organization.” – Patti Johnson, ProductManager Loudoun County Public Schools

3. How To Get Started As A Product Management Consultant

One of the best ways to start learning about Product Management is to spend some time as an intern or entry-level employee at a technology startup. You can learn about Product Management consulting by working as a Product Marketing Manager at a larger company. Product Management Consultants need to be independent and self-sufficient; they’ve got to know how to manage their own time and show clients what they can do for them. Product Management Consultants are hired because of their expertise, so the best way to get started is through your personal network

4. Why Becoming A Product Management Consultant Could Make Your Career More Flexible

Becoming a Product Management Consultant has allowed Patti Johnson to travel more freely between IBM (where she now works) and Loudoun County Public Schools  (her client). Being an independent Product Management Consultant gives you the flexibility to work with multiple companies, which could help you decide where you want your Product Management career to take you next. Product management consulting offers the flexibility to work with companies in different types of Product Management — Product Managers at one company may do market research, and Product Managers at another may focus on building product features, for example.

The world is still adjusting to Product Management Consultants, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t opportunities for Product Management Consultants. Every time a company decides that they need Product Management Consulting, that’s an opportunity for Product Management Consultants. It just requires that you prove yourself, which can be tough when you’re new to Product Management Consulting.

5. Why Being A Product Manager Might Be The Better Choice For You

When it comes down to it, if you are passionate about Product Management, Product Management Consulting is probably not the best choice for you. Product Management Consultants work on Product Management tasks at any company that hires them, but Product Managers are responsible for Product Management day-to-day. Product Managers may always be managing Product Managers and Product Marketing Managers, but Product Management Consultants can’t just hope to waltz into a company and start making product decisions. Product Management Consulting requires extensive Business Analysis skills (which Patti Johnson had already developed) as well as an understanding of how to sell Product Management services to clients. If you’re looking for more of a business career, becoming a Product Manager might be the better choice for you.

6. Pros And Cons Of Being A Product Manager/Product Management Consultant

Product Managers are Product Management professionals, and Product Management Consultants may be Product Management experts. Product Managers and Product Management Consultants need different skills and experiences to meet their needs. Product Managers should take care of Product Management day-to-day; Product Management Consultants can help Product Managers by doing the Product Management tasks that Product Managers don’t have time for or aren’t as familiar with. However, like all careers, there are good reasons to become either a Product Manager or a Product Management Consultant (or both!).

Being both a Product Manager and a Product Management Consultant can help you see your product from two completely different angles. The ability to see your own career from multiple perspectives can make you more successful in all Product Management fields. Product Managers and Product Management Consultants both need Product Marketing skills to succeed, so building those Product Marketing skills can help you transition between the two careers without any hesitation. Product Managers work with Product marketing professionals regularly, so understanding Product Marketing as a Product Management Consultant will help you understand what they’re doing and why.

A career as a Product Manager or Product Management Consultant is going to be hard work. If making tough decisions, managing people, and using your expertise wasn’t hard enough, becoming a Product Manager or Product Management Consultant requires even more dedication. However, for those willing to put in the time and effort to become either a Product Manager or Product Management Consultant, there are significant opportunities for Product Management jobs and Product Management careers.

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Conclusion

As you can see, there are pros and cons to each career path. Ultimately, it comes down to what is best for your lifestyle and work-life balance. But the one commonality between both careers? You’ll be making an impact on a company that will affect many lives! The question isn’t whether or not you should become a Product Management Consultant or Product Manager; instead, it’s which of these paths offers the most benefits for you right now at this moment in time.

What’s The Difference Between a Product Management Recruiter and a Product Management Consultant?

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Product Managers often find themselves debating whether they should become recruiters or consultants because they want to gain more experience in different areas of Product Management. Some people believe that becoming a recruiter is better because you’ll get experience working with different products and companies. Others think that becoming a consultant is better because you’ll gain more experience working on different projects and areas of expertise within Product Management, and also because you’ll be paid more.

At the end of the day, they both require strong skills and experience in Product Management; however, here are some key differences between recruiters and consultants.

Product Management Recruiters

Recruiters focus on selling services. They will often go out and find clients who are looking for their type of service, contact them to learn about what they need, and convince them that they can solve their problems. This requires excellent communication skills because the recruiter has to clearly communicate how their product management recruiting firm can help the client achieve their goals. At the same time, recruiters must also have strong analytics skills to easily measure whether or not a company’s needs are met after working with them. Since recruiters spend much of their time marketing themselves online, they should also know how to use social media effectively as well as SEO (search engine optimization) tools to drive traffic back to their website. While recruiters don’t have to worry about solving problems since that’s not what they’re selling, if a client expresses interest in learning more from the recruiter about how their product management recruiting firm can help them solve a particular problem, they should be prepared to provide as much information as possible.

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Product Management Consultants

Consultants work with clients to help them implement their own strategies and solve problems. Consultants may or may not have experience working with the type of company they are currently consulting for, but it doesn’t matter because there is a process consultants follow when they first start working for a new company. First, the consultant will need to learn as much as possible about their client’s business model (industry, customer base, etc.), target market (who they’re selling their products and services to), and strategy (how they plan on getting a leg up over the competition). Second, once the consultant has learned everything they can about the client’s business model, target market, and strategy, they will then be able to advise them on how best to implement their Product Management consulting strategies. This is where communication skills come into play because consultants must be able to clearly communicate not only with their clients but also with any additional stakeholders present at meetings (e.g., employees). Finally, consultants should have strong leadership skills so that they can coach their clients on how best to solve problems within Product Management, even if it means doing some of the work themselves.

Product Managers who work as consultants tend to learn more about different types of companies/businesses than those who just focus on recruiting roles within one specific company or industry. They will have to understand the client’s business and write proposals/presentations that answer their clients’ needs so that they can easily understand.

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Similarities between Product Management Recruiters and Product Manager Consultants

Both of these roles are important for the growth of your company. Recruiters are responsible for finding new talent, which means they need to have excellent negotiation skills. Product managers play a more long-term role that is best suited for those who want to be on the front lines of product strategy, building products from scratch or dividing existing monoliths into microservices.

Product Managers need to be able to convince clients that their services are worth the investment and demonstrate the value of what they’re proposing. They must be able to quickly establish rapport with clients, which includes coaching them on how best to articulate their needs. Product Managers learn about different types of companies/businesses across many industries, whereas product managers who work as consultants gain more experience within the technology space.

Both roles require excellent communication skills because you will often be presenting your ideas or vision to potential clients in order to attract new business. Product Management recruiters tend to have a strong sales background, while Product Managers who work as consultants generally have very strong consulting backgrounds. This means they may know more about different types of companies/businesses than someone with a strong sales background.

Conclusion

In conclusion, becoming a Product Manager Recruiter requires a strong background in Product Management and excellent interpersonal and communication skills. Being a Product Manager Consultant, on the other hand, requires an equally strong background in product management as well as business development experience and excellent communication skills.

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What Do Product Management Consultants Do?

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Product Management Consulting is a lucrative field, and not one to be taken lightly. Product Management Consultants are the bridge between the needs of clients and the capabilities of companies. They can help you find new ways to sell your product or service, restructure your team, develop a new strategy for growth, or create an entirely new product that better meets customer demands.  The Product Managers who need help with their projects should consider reaching out to a consultant for guidance and advice on how best to proceed in order to achieve desired outcomes. These professionals can also serve as mentors by providing valuable information about trends in business and insights into what works and what doesn’t work in this industry. Consulting firms offer competitive rates with high-quality deliverables tailored specifically for each client’s product.

Product Manager Vs. Product Management Consultant

A Product Management Consultant is a product consultant who works with Product Managers and Product Owners to build products or help them do what they need to do. Product Management Consultants typically work in product consulting companies, though there are also individual Product Management Consultants. Product Management Consultants help Product Managers with product requirements, product roadmaps, product release schedules, and product estimates.

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Product Management Consultants work with Product Managers to define their vision for a product, identify the Product Manager’s strategy from the vision statement, and then confirm that there is clarity in how that strategy is going to be executed. Product Management Consultants help Product Managers plan for product release, work with Product Managers to build product requirements, develop product roadmaps, and ensure that the steps are in place to get products out. Product Management Consultants are responsible for making sure that the Product Manager has all of the tools and information necessary to do their job well

What Product Management Consultants Do Day to Day?

Product Management Consulting companies may be a Product Manager’s best friend. Product Managers typically have a full plate, which Product Management Consultants can help with by freeing up some of the Product Manager’s time for things that Product Managers need to do from their job description, such as product discovery meetings and product backlog prioritization. Product Management Consultants can also help Product Managers by doing product requirements, product roadmap development, and product release estimation. Product Management Consulting companies typically have Product Management Consultants that work on product discovery meetings with Product Managers to map out the vision for a product or product line, then determine the best strategy for executing that vision. 

The Product Management Consultant will help confirm if what Product Managers are planning is feasible and doable within the specified time frame. Product Management Consultants also perform product estimation, which helps determine if Product Managers will be able to accomplish product tasks within the product release schedule.

Why Hire A Product Management Consultant?

The Product Managers themselves might have years of Product Management experience under their belt but often lack the experience working with a product management consulting company. This is where Product Management Consultants come in! They bring leadership skills as well as creativity, analytical thinking for problem-solving or decision making, understanding trends within their industry (or field) that pertain specifically towards marketing aspects depending on what type of business they work with. Ecommerce companies might need more customer-focused advice when it comes down to how much money should be spent advertising online versus offline. Lastly, Product Management Consultants must have some technical know-how, including knowledge about various software packages used today like Jira(TM), Trello®, or Google Drive™.

The Product Management Consultants must bring a unique set of skills to the Product Manager consulting table and have to be able to effectively communicate their suggestions with Product Managers to get things done.   

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Conclusion

Product Managers looking for the best results should find a good Product Management Consultant at their company. The skills that make up a successful partnership between these two parties depend on what’s going to work well with both individuals and how they will achieve business goals together in order not only to produce but also market products from start to finish!

 
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