

Ideating and planning a winning product.However, there are some factors that are common to all product manager roles. The responsibilities shouldered by a product manager depend upon multiple factors such as the type of product, market, industry, complexity, etc.

This is a good place to reveal if this is a new position you have created so that candidates come with the right frame of mind. ObjectivesĬontinue the job description with a clear explanation of why you are hiring for this position. In this section, provide a brief summary of what you are looking for and how you will support the new incumbent with a thriving work culture. There is no need to get creative here be consistent with what is the standard in your industry so that candidates do not get confused. The job title should be a four to five word description that tells the purpose and scope of the job. To provide all this information, the description should have a brief overview, the purpose of the job, the responsibilities, skills and qualifications, preferred qualifications and the work culture of your organization. But, like a CEO, product managers set the goals, define success, help motivate teams, and are responsible for the outcome.You should write a product manager job description that clearly explains the most important responsibilities of the new incumbent and what support will be provided to ensure their success. People hear Horowitz’s analogy and think product managers have some kind of special authority. Really, though, he's saying product managers need to balance all three needs and make hard decisions and trade-offs. People see Eriksson’s diagram and think that product managers manage the product between all three disciplines (UX, technology, and business). I agree with both Eriksson and Horowitz, but not always with how their definitions are interpreted.

Fifteen years ago, Ben Horowitz, CEO of Opsware, called the product manager the “ CEO of the product.” Martin Eriksson, product leader extraordinaire and founder of ProductTank, initially summed up product management in a simple Venn diagram that sits the product manager at the intersection of business, technology, and user experience. Where practitioners of more established crafts, like design and engineering, have been able to segment themselves by their specialization, product managers are still defining what the role should be. The confusion about what a product manager is likely stems from the recency of the role.

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, and rallies a team to turn that vision into a reality. After 10 years of studying the craft of product management, I’ve developed a deep understanding of what it means to be a product manager.
