domeet webmaster

It’s hard to be a product manager, but it’s also a rare experience.

The Translation Bureau is a compilation team that focuses on technology, business, workplace, life and other fields, focusing on foreign new technologies, new ideas, and new trends.

Editor’s note: The position of product manager has been very hot recently. But what is the product manager doing? What are the responsibilities? What kind of skills do you have? There seems to be a lack of unified opinion on these issues. To this end, Producthabits has studied the job descriptions of product managers from 51 top companies, from Uber to Amazon, and summarized nine insights for those who want to find PM and want to be a PM. The original title is: How 51 leading tech teams define the Product Manager role

What are the company’s recruitment product managers (PM) doing? What responsibility should PM bear? What product skills do you need?

We decided to find out the answers to these questions.

We analyzed 51 job offers from Silicon Valley Technology. The company ranges from small start-ups (1-50 employees) to large companies (more than 10,000 employees) such as Uber, Visa and Amazon.

Of the 51 product manager positions we analyzed, 33 were initially marked as product manager roles, 18 of which were senior product manager roles.

The following are what we learned:

Insight 1: The first thing a product manager has is the product documentation.

65% of job postings require PM to be responsible for product documentation. Documents include an overview of user requirements, building a roadmap, tracking feature requests, and any other written documentation needed to create a product.

One of the main responsibilities of product managers is to categorize decisions and organize the information and then share it with other members of the team. Here are a few examples of how companies can include this in their job descriptions:

“Create clear artifacts in the product development process. Provide clear, flow charts that show the user’s journey, and clear specifications that clearly communicate the needs with the partner team.”< Br>

“Identify, specify and product features and functions and clarify their excellencePredecessor; develop market requirements documents and product requirements documents. Create content for competitive materials and product documentation”

“Build and evaluate future product opportunities with our customers; Create and maintain a consistent and measurable roadmap that includes smaller features and more ambitious action plans to shape the market Transform the product strategy of Big Picture into detailed requirements and hypothetically driven proof of concept.”

We see that the most important document that PM has is the roadmap – 61% of job postings require product managers to create and maintain a roadmap. Product managers should communicate on why they make certain decisions and document what the team decides to develop:

“Develop a roadmap that meets the company’s goals so our team can provide quality service to our customers”

“You need to help define the roadmap and strategy for your product and provide clear requirements for designers and engineers to use to achieve your vision.”

“Defining, managing, and developing a new, scalable, product strategy, roadmap, and vision for the same inventory management platform.”

The responsibility for PM documentation is not just a roadmap. We found that PM also needs to be responsible for some other content. The most common ones include:

• Product and User Requirements Documentation (39% of job postings)

• Comprehensive Analysis and Market Research Report (31% of job postings)

• User stories (14% of job postings)

PM needs to be responsible for summarizing and organizing information so that it can develop and deliver the right things to its customers. So it makes sense that the documentation is a key part of the product manager’s role.

Insight 2: 73% of product managers need to spend time prioritizing features.

The vast majority of PMs also need to take the time to determine which features should be prioritized for development. In most cases, this work involves gathering information from customers and stakeholders to determine what to develop and when to develop.

“The ability to prioritize and deliver features and products throughout the product lifecycle.”

“Guiding product definitions, determining feature priorities and scope.”

“Identify and assign features through direct input from customers and developersSex and prioritize.

Prioritization is one of the toughest tasks in PM work. Product managers are constantly gathering information from customers and other parts of the company (leadership, sales, marketing, customer support, engineering) to determine what to develop.

PM filters a lot of noise every day to determine what to develop. Once priorities are identified, they must reach a consensus among key stakeholders.

Insight 3: Less than half of the companies expect PM to communicate with customers.

I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw this. Only 45% of PMs are expected to conduct customer research. This is less than half of PM! Customer research is the lifeblood of developing products. But according to our analysis, obviously not everyone thinks so.

Less than half of companies are looking for product people who know how to get close to their customers and understand the market.

“Commonly communicate with customers to identify and resolve unspoken and unmet needs.”

“Combatively understands customer needs and how product services meet these needs.”

“As a domain and product expert representing companies attending industry events, customer visits, and other external events.”

The research plays an important role in the ability of the product manager to determine how the product should go next. Without it you will be caught and may solve the wrong customer problem. PM can’t work by feeling. They need data-based, customer-oriented to be successful.

Insight 4: Empathy is one of the most important personal skills a product manager should have.

Essence is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. This is the key skill that PM needs to have. why? Because when it comes to developing products, knowing customers is almost everything.

Among the role we analyzed, 49% said they were looking for PMs that would benefit the customer and the company’s stakeholders.

“Essence: You have a deep understanding of what customers think. You can accurately predict how changes will make them feel. You like to bring pleasure.”

“There is a strong empathy for customers and stakeholders, the voice of the customer, and the success of marketing, engineering, and customer when necessary.”

PM needs to be able to think for customers. Go to see the world through their eyes. To gain a deeper understanding of the customer’s perceptions, and to use this knowledge to develop solutions that satisfy customers.Plan and persuade others in the company to understand their vision.

Insight 5: Most PMs don’t have the metrics to measure their work.

Although product strategies are often defined by PM, PM rarely (30%) has metrics that define product success.

In contrast, most PMs are responsible for associating their work with larger corporate goals.

“Make your product strategy aligned with your company’s goals and drive positive business results.”

“Understand business needs and turn them into clear and unambiguous product specifications; drive product documentation for different audiences.”

“Build a framework to prioritize technology development based on business goals.”

The role of PM not only translates the needs of customers, but also matches them to business needs.

Insight 6: Ask product managers to be data driven, but most product managers don’t have any kind of metrics.

Product managers need to make decisions about hard data support for customers. This expectation was echoed in the role description we reviewed, with 59% of the positions expecting PM to have a deep understanding of the analysis and how to interpret the product data.

“Working depends on data and research, not assumptions.”

“The ability to get data yourself and gain insights from complex data sets. Expertise in writing SQL queries is an advantage.”

“Excellent analytical and quantitative modeling skills focused on data-driven decision making.”

“Strong organizational and analytical skills are critical to the success of this role. You must be able to solve complex problems and turn solutions into simple concepts that allow customers and all employees within the company Can understand and recognize.”

The company is looking for PMs that can independently validate assumptions through research and analysis, and simplify complex issues to prioritize priorities. It is important for PM to clarify the uncertainty and find out which data is important.

This is an unrealistic expectation that will put product managers in a state of failure. The leadership itself is not sure which data is most important, but hopes that PM can solve the problem by itself.

Insight 7: Product managers need to work with engineering.

Almost all job postings (95%) indicate that PM will work with engineers.

Although PM does not own the delivered code, they need to work with the engineering department to understand the estimates, sorts, and trade-offs.

“To understand our product system technically, work with engineers and stakeholders to identify meaningful improvements.”

“Work with engineers and designers to conceive, prioritize, and deliver quality solutions for our customers and professionals.”

“Work with engineering departments to implement product strategies and design concepts and iterate.”

If there is no collaboration between products and engineering, nothing can go on. PM needs to work with engineering as early as possible and usually needs to be able to deliver to customers. PM and engineers must collaborate on technical research, pre-discussion of functions, iterative evaluation, specification discussions, and trade-offs, as well as product synergies. This is the second most commonality of all the characters we have seen.

As a PM, close contact with a colleague of engineering is almost as important as approaching a customer. Learning how to work with engineers is an important skill in PM learning. To this end, I will do the following to ensure my close relationship with the project:

• Don’t just hand over the work to the engineering team. Instead, introduce them into the decision-making process. Request engineering departments to provide feedback when designing and writing specifications. Take them with you.

• Share customer insights and product priorities with them to help engineers understand the “why” behind what you are developing.

• Learn to interpret what the engineer said. When an engineer says that a feature or schedule cannot be implemented, talk to them and discuss workarounds or trade-offs.

Insight 8:71% of companies want PM to clearly write and express ideas.

Almost every company is looking for a PM that can communicate effectively. PM works across multiple departments and affects a range of team members from customer success to senior management. Therefore, they must be able to communicate clearly with a wide audience.

“PM should be able to manage multiple projects and collaborate effectively with other people and departments in a fast-paced dynamic environment. PM should be a very capable author and moderator.”

“Excellent written and verbal communication skills. Can influence and motivate everyone through your relationships in a variety of job functions. Strong and highThe ability of level managers to collaborate and report to them.

The company hopes that PM can influence people across the company, promote team coordination, and exchange ideas among different groups. Communication is also a required skill because PM has product documentation.

Insight 9: The requirement for retention is missing from the job posting.

Retention is a key indicator of product/market matching and the value of product offerings. However, according to our analysis, PM is not explicitly required to be responsible for retention. None of the job postings we evaluated mentioned retention requirements or responsibilities related to maintaining customer interactions with products and features.

This discovery is surprising considering the importance of retention and interaction. Everyone will think that one of PM’s work includes monitoring and improving retention rates through their own initiatives.

The situation does not seem to be the case.

If the person who made the product is not responsible for the retention, who should be responsible? This issue is subject to further discussion.

After analyzing the recruitment information of 51 Silicon Valley technology companies, we learned what product managers need to do, what they need to be and what they need to know. Here are nine key insights we found:

• Insight 1: The first thing a product manager has is the product documentation.

• Insight 2: 73% of product managers need to spend time prioritizing features.

• Insight 3: Less than half of the companies expect PM to communicate with customers.

• Insight 4: Empathy is one of the most important personal skills a product manager should have.

• Insight 5: Most PMs don’t have metrics to measure their work.

• Insight 6: Ask product managers to be data driven, but most product managers don’t have any metrics.

• Insight 7: The product manager needs to work with the engineering department.

• Insight 8:71% of companies want PM to clearly write and express ideas.

• Insight 9: The requirement for retention is missing from the job posting.

With all these insights, we have been able to answer my questions clearly:

What exactly does the company’s recruitment product manager want to do? What responsibility should PM bear? What kind of product skills should I have?

Product managers need to have a wide range of skills so that they can effectively move from leadership to engineering to sales.Door communication. They need to constantly think for the customer and coordinate the stakeholders to keep the team moving forward. PM seeks to make trade-offs by finding and using data to make the right strategic decisions to eliminate uncertainty.

Managing products can be difficult, and if you’ve done it before, you know that this is one of the most valuable work experiences you can get.

Translator: boxi.