The 6 types of Product Managers. Which one do you need?

 

Catherine (Kit) Ulrich

Eskimos have 1,000 words to describe snow. Marketers have well defined adjectives for their field: affiliate, SEO, content, performance, enterprise. Developers describe their functions and their expertise: front end, back end, java, node.js. And then there is Product, which often starts and ends with a single defining word…product.

Background — The rise of Product:

Ten years ago, Product was barely discussed as a function. Roll forward the clock to today, and product managers are some of the most in-demand talent. Just last year, the WSJ published an article stating that the most coveted post-MBA job is a product manager role (a bit frightening, I admit).

So, what is a product manager? There have been a number of articles outlining the skills of product managers: many write about product as a blend of business, ux, and tech, including posts by Marty Cagan, Martin Eriksson, and this gem by Dan Schmidt. And then there is this classic post by Ben Horowitz and David Weiden on Good vs. Bad PMs.

Credit: Martin Eriksson

Overall, as Marty Cagan says in his book Inspired, the job of a product manager is “to discover a product that is valuable, usable and feasible”.

Why this matters:

However, this broad definition is missing a set of adjectives for the role, Product Manager. The lack of a common vernacular creates a shallow definition for the variety of product people out in the world. And, that lack of definition leads to hiring mis-steps and not understanding the superpowers and kryptonite for each type of product person.

At first, you might believe that this is a large company problem because they can hire multiple product managers, each with their own specialties. But this is even more critical for startups where you must make sure your first hires are the right ones.

The 6 main product manager types:

Superpower: Loves the chase of finding conversion and retention improvements. Might have been a marketer in a past life, blending customer psychology with behavior change tactics. Helps consumers find what they are looking for with the optimal amount of work.

• Kryptonite: Risks becoming addicted to the sugar high of boosting $ at the expense of the overall customer experience. For example, turning off an auto-rebill reminder will likely pop your short-term retention, but could negatively impact long-term retention, refunds, and brand loyalty.
• Example job function: Responsible for optimizing conversion flows from marketing landing pages, pricing, and onboarding. Responsible for driving engagement/repeats by revealing new content or products
• Aliases: eCommerce, Marketing, Performance, Conversion

Superpower: A detective at heart, they can study a customer’s workflow/process and find unique opportunities for improving it. They cut out extraneous steps and optimize every interaction.

• Kryptonite: Assuming users will adopt a new behavior/workflow. Old workflows are addictive because they are familiar; there will often be a switching cost for users even if your new tool is better in the long run
• Example job function: Building editing tools, dashboards, tracking tools
• Aliases: SaaS, workflow
• On a related note: There are also Internal Workflow Product Managers. This flavor of Workflow Warrior loves driving improvements for the functions within a business including marketing, customer service, tech and sales (to name only a few).

Superpower: Understands the psychology behind users sharing and connecting with others. Loves testing ways to drive engagement and deepen connections. In a B2B setting, builds collaboration into a workflow.

• Kryptonite: Focuses on building a vibrant community at the expense of financial/business goals.
• Example job function: Responsible for building the contributor side of a marketplace, driving social interactions in a gaming app, or collaboration for enterprise SaaS.
• Aliases: Social, platform

Superpower: Build it and they will come. Amazing at building services that others (internal teams or external developers) want to use. Typically more technical PMs who understand how to build a service/API.

• Kryptonite: Not understanding that you must also market it. Learning scalable ways to address the variety of use cases or customization of your service.
• Example job function: Manages the development of external APIs and the developer platform.
• Aliases: API, ‘technical’

Superpower: Expert translator between user needs and the problems algorithms or AI /ML models can solve. In the past, this role was commonly a ‘Search PM’.

• Kryptonite: Focusing on technically interesting problems that have low business/customer value.
• Example job function: Improving search success rates and time to conversion.
• Aliases: Search, ‘technical’, analytics, AI/ML

Superpower: Expert at unique mobile use cases, mobile ux/design, and app store processes. Ideally, has a personal relationship with the Apple review team!

• Kryptonite: Believing that understanding mobile is enough. Must build capabilities in one of the areas above as well, because understanding the native ecosystem will be a skill that every PM has in the future.
• Example job function: Leads iOS and Android native app teams
• Aliases: Native, Apps

The product profession has grown enormously over the last ten years and deserves to have a set of common adjectives (probably even more than 6). I look forward to the day when all companies and job descriptions use a common set of vernacular to find the right person!

With these product types, you’ll be able to determine exactly what type of PM your company needs, and what questions you’ll need to ask to find them.

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The Ladder of Needs

 Catherine (Kit) Ulrich

A surprisingly simple technique for a rockstar product vision: The Ladder of Needs

I was recently asked, “what’s the most important quality of a product manager?” My answer came very quickly: the ability to sell your team on a vision. Why? Because all the other skills we expect in a product manager don’t matter if you can’t sell the team on your vision.

And, beyond selling your team, the skill that most product managers are looking to develop is setting a compelling product roadmap. So, how do you create a compelling vision and roadmap that drives your product to get stronger over time?

Combining two all-star tools:

To answer this question, I have always loved Clay Christensen’s classic framework of ‘jobs to be done’. What job has your customer hired your product to do? His model boils down to this quote:

“When we buy a product, we essentially “hire” it to help us do a job. If it does the job well, the next time we’re confronted with the same job, we tend to hire that product again. And if it does a crummy job, we “fire” it and look for an alternative.”

This is a fantastic framework to start with, but I have found it to be even more powerful when you combine it with Simon Sinek’s ideas from Start with Why. When combined, these two tools create what I call The Ladder of Needs.

The Ladder of Needs

The ladder has three rungs, read from the bottom up:

Let’s see this framework in action for a few companies by reading up from the bottom of each ladder. [Note, these examples are all for the initial incarnation of the company and represent my own perspective.]

Understanding the why behind your product is the fastest way to sell your vision, but more importantly, it also allows you to plan a more strategic product roadmap. It allows you to consider whether your initiatives are a new ‘what’, improvements to ‘how’, or product extensions that further support your ‘why’.

This ladder of needs also shows a path to some of the more genius product moves we have seen. And luckily, it’s a repeatable technique that you can apply for developing your own product roadmap. Let’s look at Amazon and Rent the Runway for two examples:

What is your product’s ‘why’?

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The 7 Strategic Phases of the Product Development Lifecycle

 

The strategic phases of the product development lifecycle is a sequential set of steps encapsulating a given product’s entire life cycle. The first step is ideation. The last step is plotting how to sunset a product. Many different skills, methods, tools, and stakeholders are involved in various aspects and phases.

The only true consistent figure in this process is product management. Product managers take the reigns as early as product definition and concept vetting. They bring it to life, nurture its growth, and ultimately put it to bed one final time.

The 7 Strategic Phases of the Product Development Lifecycle

Before diving headfirst into any of the strategic phases of the product development lifecycle, it’s essential to understand all the steps. While mostly discrete activities, they do build on each other. A faulty foundation can result in a wobbly, flawed future.

1. Product Concept Development

This initial phase might be the most fun and creative stage in the product lifecycle, and it’s the most critical. Businesses come up with lots of ideas. So only the most promising projects must get the traction and resources they deserve.

So, once there’s an initial idea internal folks are excited about, it’s time to employ some of the available tools and techniques for some quick market validation. These tests give the team confidence they’re onto something with real promise.

A key step in this phase is product discovery. This process gives the product team a much deeper understanding of the problems potential customers face and the user personas the solution can target. Without a solid foundation of who the product is for and which of their pain points it solves, there’s little hope of finding product-market fit.

Armed with a good idea and a solid understanding of the key problem, the concept is then fleshed out while gathering additional information.

2. Competitive Analysis

If a company has stumbled onto a great idea, it’s likely they’re not the only ones to have this epiphany. That’s why the next step is surveying the landscape. You do this to see how the product concept compares to what’s already available or under development.

The goal here is to understand the other options potential customers already have. Sometimes there will be a direct competitor with a relatively similar offering. There may be broader solutions that include similar functionality to the product in question. An effective competitive analysis must include completely unexpected, less-than-elegant workaround solutions potential customers use to solve their pain points.

This includes using spreadsheets for building product roadmaps, authoring code in a plain text editor, or building animations in PowerPoint. People often use the tools they already have at their disposal. Changing those behaviors may be just as important and challenging as taking on direct competitors.

3. Market Research

Still not done with homework! Now that the business has a handle on how its solution fits into the scene, it’s time to see if its differentiated approach to solving user problems holds up.

Market research typically involves both qualitative and quantitative research. Surveys and aggregated data can indicate trends, help calculate the total addressable market, and serve as valuable input to the prioritization process.

Meanwhile, qualitative research can help product teams get to the “why” at the heart of the solution. Using focus groups, interviews, and other in-depth research methods. These methods add both color and a sense of humanity to the research and development process. An added benefit is that they challenge assumptions.

4. Minimum Viable Product Development

The tail end of the market research phase may also entail developing a Minimum Viable Product. An MVP is functional for gauging the reaction and interest of likely buyers. It only includes the most vital features and functionality based on the business’s understanding of which user stories customers need most. It is laser-focused on solving core problems.

During MVP definition and development, the team may begin employing prioritization frameworks. MVPs determine which items would deliver the most “bang for the buck” and must be in place for the initial product offering. Frameworks focused on core functionality versus product line expansion are a good fit at this time. Examples include the jobs-to-be-done framework, which ensures the business is building products customers actually want and use.

By getting something to the market quickly, the company can validate its concept and generate user feedback. This is crucial during these early stages. It serves to inform for adjustments to perform key tasks at launch, and the value proposition and messaging matches the offering.

5. Introduction and Launch

With “Version 1.0” about to become a reality, it’s time to take this idea to market. Even if it still bears a “beta” label. The hard work of generating awareness and demand often starts well before the “download” link goes live.

The product marketing team should be generating demand and building some buzz for the offering in anticipation of the release.

Using A/B testing on different messaging and price points to build up a list of interested parties and validate the value proposition’s efficacy. Press and analysts are briefed in advance and given product demos. This seeds the media market with coverage when the grand unveiling occurs.

A robust mechanism for soliciting, collecting, aggregating, and analyzing user feedback must be in place at launch. Asses the first impressions and the efficacy of different campaign messages and tactics. The results inform plans and how to allocate resources for wider promotion and growth.

Employing product analytics and customer research, product teams can begin measuring product-market fit. If gaps are identified, they can be added to the product backlog in preparation for future prioritization and product roadmapping activities.

6. Product Lifecycle

Mature products enter a new phase of existence. Typically, this is a cycle of iterative improvements and modifications. Interspersed with more significant expansions (or removal) of functionality and capabilities.

At this point, the product roadmap becomes indispensable. As processes mature, release cadences are established, and the focus shifts to enhancements and growth. KPIs, goals, outcomes, and objectives will evolve throughout the product lifecycle. It will shift based on both the success and struggles of the product as well as the organization.

While rarely boring, this is the most predictable and routine phase of the product lifecycle. Suppose the product continues to find traction and adequate growth while establishing profitability. This phase may last for years, if not decades assuming the product remains viable and there’s a persistent market for it.

To synchronize strategic objectives with resource allocation and development priorities, structure a product roadmap using themes. Themes are excellent to ensure efforts remain focused on what matters most. This method still gives the implementation team some latitude in an Agile development framework.

7. Sunset

All things must end. For some lucky product management professionals, this never happens on their watch. However, statistically, there’s a pretty good chance they’ll have to say goodbye to an entire product or major component at some point during their career.

This isn’t always a bad thing. In fact, it’s just an inevitable part of the strategic phases of the product planning process. It’s a phase in which you are retiring a product due to a superior offering’s arrival. Another reason is a dwindling need for a particular solution. This is because the problem is no longer acute enough to warrant a product.

But wrapping up a longstanding offering has many implications. Using a checklist can ensure all the aspects are properly addressed during the wind-down period.

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The Product Vision Board

 

By Roman Pichler

The vision plays an important role in bringing a new product to life: It acts as the overarching goal guiding everyone involved in the development effort. Equally important is the product strategy, the path chosen to attain the vision. Without a shared vision and an effective strategy, people are likely to pull in different directions, and the chances of creating a successful product are slim. While vision and strategy are key, describing them can be challenging. This post introduces the Product Vision Board, a tool that helps you capture the vision and product strategy. 

A Sample Vision Board 

Towards the end of 2012, I was exploring the idea of creating a software-based version of my product canvas tool that integrates seamlessly with other tools like JIRA and GreenHopper. To get started, I created an initial product vision board, which is shown below.

The product vision board above captures my assumptions about the users and the customers of the new tool, the needs the product should address, the key product features, and the value the product should create for my own business, Pichler Consulting. (I explain the sections of the board in more detail below.) 

As you may have noticed, I have kept the information on the board concise. I did not, for instance, write personas and user stories, or create a design sketch. There are two reasons for this: First, I did not know enough about the users and customers at the outset to write personas and to describe the product in more detail. Second, I find that the product details are best captured in the product backlog. 

The board was very valuable: It helped me think through my idea, and it allowed me to share my thoughts with my team, and with our development partner. Additionally, the product vision board helped me investigate the greatest risks by testing my assumptions, as I explain below. I now use the board for any new idea be it writing a new book, creating a new brochure, or updating a training course, and I help my clients apply the board. 

The Vision Board Explained 

The product vision board is the simplest thing that could possibly work to capture the vision and strategy of a product. It uses five sections as shown in the following diagram and explained below. You can download the template from the tools section of my website or by simply clicking on the picture below.

Vision states your overarching goal, the ultimate reason for creating the product, the positive change you want to bring about. Make your vision big and inspiring; use a brief statement or slogan; and ensure that the stakeholders and development team(s) support it, that it is shared. 

Target Group describes the market or market segment you want to address. You should state who the product is likely to benefit, who its users and its customers are. Choose a homogenous, clear-cut target group, especially when creating a brand-new product. 

Needs describe the product’s value proposition: the main problem the product addresses or the primary benefit it offers. The section should make it clear why people will want to use the product or pay for it. Capture what success looks like for the users and customers. If you identify several needs, prioritise them. 

Product summarises the three to five features that make your product stand out and that are critical for its success. These are likely to correlate to its unique selling proposition, and they should address the needs identified. Don’t make the mistake of listing lots of features. Stick to a maximum of five. Capture the product details at a later stage in your product backlog. 

Business Goals, finally, explain why it’s worthwhile for your company to invest in the product. It states the desired business benefits, for instance, increase revenue, enter a new market, reduce cost, develop the brand, or acquire valuable knowledge. The latter can be just as valuable as the former: When Toyota shipped the Prius in 1997, for instance, the car was not earning any money. But it immediately developed its brand (“green car company”), and had gained an advantage in hybrid technology. Prioritise the business goals to create focus and state targets. Otherwise, it’s hard to measure the product performance and apply the right key performance indicators (KPIs). 

There are, of course, other helpful tools available that help you capture your ideas, including Ash Maurya’s Lean Canvas and Alexander Osterwalder’s business model canvas. I may well be biased, but I like the simplicity of the product vision board: I find it beneficial to consider the target group, needs, key features and business goals when exploring an idea before thinking about monetisation and the business model. 

You can also watch me explain the product vision board in the video below.

Research and Validation with the Product Vision Board 

The product vision board is not only a thinking and communications tool, it also allows you to test your assumptions, and capture the newly gained insights. To get started, I find it helpful to identify the greatest risk or biggest uncertainty on the board. This creates focus, and it enforces a fail-fast: figuring out quickly what works and what doesn’t, which assumptions hold true, and which don’t. 

When I was working on my digital canvas idea, for instance, the greatest risk was initially misunderstanding the user needs, and potentially building a product that does not provide much value. I consequently decided to test my user needs assumptions before exploring further what features the tool should provide, or how the product should be implemented. I hence started carrying out a series of problem interviews, structured conversation with a prospect to understand the individual’s problems and goals without referring to the solution, and engaged in a few direct observation sessions. 

These measures helped me understand the target group better, and assess how much value a product canvas app with JIRA integration would provide. It also made me update and change the board to reflect my latest thinking, as the following picture shows:

I suggest you follow a similar approach when you work with the vision board: Identify your biggest risk, and attack this risk first. Don’t be afraid to fail: Making mistakes is part and parcel of creating something new. What’s more, early failure facilitates fast learning and it can save you time and money. 

Product Vision Board and Business Model 

While a strength of the product vision board is its simplicity, it does not detail how the business goals are achieved and it does not capture the business model including the competitors, the partners, the channels, the revenue sources, and the cost factors. Describing and testing your business model ideas is particularly important when you develop a brand-new product and when you want to make bigger changes to an existing product, for instance, to take it to a new market (segment). 

To capture your business model ideas you can either complement the product vision board with the business model canvas or use its extended version, the product vision board extended, which is shown below. The extended board is inspired by the business model canvas. You can download it for free from the tools section of my website.

8 tips for creating a compelling product vision

Creating and managing a successful product requires a lot of time and energy. In order to be fully committed, you have to be convinced that what you are doing is right and have a clear vision of where to take your product. This post shares eight tips to help you create an effective product vision that inspires the development team and the stakeholders. 

Describe the Motivation behind the Product 

Having an idea for a new product is great. But it’s not enough. What you need is a vision that guides everyone involved in making the product a success: product management, development, marketing, sales, and support. The product vision is the overarching goal you are aiming for, the reason for creating the product. It provides a continued purpose in an ever-changing world, acts as the product’s true north, provides motivation when the going gets tough, and facilitates effective collaboration. 

To choose the right vision, ask yourself why you are excited to work on the product, why you care about it, what positive change the product should bring about, and how it will shape the future. One of my favourite vision statements comes from Toys R Us. The company’s vision is to  “put joy in kids’ hearts and a smile on parents’ faces”. The statement concisely captures the intention behind the company’s products and services and describes the change the users and customers should experience. 

If you choose the company vision for you product, then that’s fine. Otherwise make sure that the two visions aren’t in conflict other but aligned. 

Look beyond the Product 

Be clear on the difference between the product vision and the product and don’t confuse the two. The former is the motivation for developing the product; the latter is a means to achieve the overarching goal. 

Say that I want to create a computer game that allows children to choose and interact with characters, select different music tracks and worlds, choreograph their own dances, and play together with friends. This might be a nice idea, but it is not the actual vision. 

An effective product vision goes beyond the product and captures the change the product should instigate. A vision for the game would be “Help children enjoy music and dancing”. 

Distinguish between Vision and Product Strategy 

Your product vision should not be a plan that shows how to reach your goal. Instead, you should keep the product vision and the product strategy – the path towards the goal – separate. This enables to change your strategy while staying grounded in your vision. (This is called to pivot in Lean Startup.) 

At the same time, a vision is the prerequisite for choosing the right strategy. If you don’t have an overarching goal then you cannot decide how you best get there. This is nicely illustrated by the famous conversation between the Cheshire Cat and Alice in Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland. Asked which way Alice should take, the cat replies: “That depends a good deal on where you want to get to.” “I don’t much care where –,” says Alice. “Then it doesn’t matter which way you go,” responds the Cheshire Cat. 

A handy tool for describing both the product vision and the product strategy is the Product Vision Board. Its top section captures the vision, and the ones below state the strategy to realise the vision.

Create a Shared Vision 

You can come up with the most beautiful vision for your product. But it’s useless if the people involved in making the product a success don’t buy into it. To leverage the vision as the product’s true north, to create alignment, and to facilitate effective collaboration, the product vision must be shared – everyone must have the same vision. Without a shared vision, people follow their own goals making it much harder to achieve product success. 

A great way to create a shared product vision is to employ a collaborative visioning workshop. Rather than formulating a product vision and then selling it to the key people you create it together. Use the product idea as an input and ask the workshop attendees to capture their motivation for working on the product. Then compare the different visions, look for common ground, and combine the different goals into a new one everybody agrees with.

You can employ a similar approach for an existing product: Invite the right people, ask them to write down their vision, and compare them. If the visions are the same or very similar, then that’s great. If not then you have some work to do. 

Choose an Inspiring Vision 

“If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you,” said Steve Jobs. Your vision should therefore motivate people, connect them to the product, and inspire them. 

I find that a vision focused on creating a benefit for others provides a particularly deep motivation and a lasting inspiration. It guides me when I am feeling doubtful much more than a money- or self-centric vision can. There is nothing wrong with making money, of course, and every product needs a viable business model. But I find that people excel because they believe that they are doing something meaningful and beneficial. 

Going back to the computer game example used earlier, an alternative vision for the game could be “Diversify and grow the business”. But such a vision is not inspirational and motivating enough in my mind. It would not lift me up in moments of doubt. Rather than stating business goals in the vision, I like to capture them in the product strategy (using the business goal section of the Product Vision Board). 

If you are not sure then I recommend that you include the beneficial change the product should create for others and for your business without trying to quantify or detail those benefits. Otherwise your vision may no longer be able to guide you when you pivot. 

Think Big 

Make your product vision broad and ambitious so that it engages people and it can facilities a change in the strategy. The vision of the computer game example “Help children enjoy music and dancing” is a broad and ambitious vision, for instance. It does not refer to the actual product idea or a specific target group, and it is not satisfied with creating a fun gaming experience. It aims for more. 

If it turns out that the idea of developing a computer game for children is ill conceived then there are still alternatives to make the vision come true. I could, for instance, decide to open up a dance school or create a virtual dance course. (Given that I am an exceptionally bad dancer, I seriously doubt that I’d be good at either. But at least I have some options.) 

Keep your Vision Short and Sweet 

As your vision is the ultimate reason for creating the product, it should be easy to communicate and to understand. Other artefacts including a product strategy, a business model, a product backlog, and a marketing plan provide the necessary details. Your vision should be short and sweet, it should be easy to memorise and recite. I like to employ a simple slogan to capture the vision. It can take me several iterations to get to such a vision but I find it worth the effort. As Leonardo da Vinci said, “Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” 

Use the Vision to Guide your Decisions 

Use the vision to guide your product decisions and to focus everyone on the ultimate reason for creating the product. While the vision alone is certainly not enough, it is a first filter for new ideas and change requests: Anything that helps you move closer to your vision—be it a new feature, a change of direction, or a new technology— is helpful and should be considered; anything that doesn’t, is not beneficial and should probably be discarded.

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