Your Product Manager Superpower: How To Drive Impact And Influence
Let's see how this role influence and collaborates across the company and beyond.
Usually, when you ask a Product Manager “what do you do?” they have a hard time answering this question. That's because the role is multifaceted and varies greatly depending on the industry, company, and even specific product they're working on. Feels familiar?
Product managers are the unsung heroes of the business world. While their title may seem straightforward, their role extends far more just product development. They possess a unique set of skills and responsibilities that allow them to have a profound impact and influence within their organization and beyond.
What’s the impact of a Product Manager in a company?
A Product Manager (PM) plays a central role in shaping a company's strategic direction by defining the product vision, ensuring it aligns with the organization's broader goals, and guiding various teams towards a unified objective.
Through diligent market research, prioritization, and acting as the voice of the customer, PMs ensure products meet genuine market needs, leading to increased user adoption, satisfaction, and potential revenue growth.
Their influence extends beyond product development; they also foster innovation, manage risks, strategize product launches, and uphold the company's reputation in the market.
PMs not only drive the product's success but also significantly impact the company's financial and brand standing.
Product Managers need to collaborate A LOT
So to succeed at all os these heavy responsibilities, Product Managers collaborate with various departments to gain a holistic product view and make sure to align their product strategy with the overall company strategy.
Departments a Product Manager Interacts With:
Engineering/Development: To guide and prioritize the development process.
Design/UX/UI: To ensure the product's interface is intuitive and user-friendly.
Marketing: To strategize product launches, promotions, and market positioning.
Sales: To understand market demand, gather feedback, and ensure the product meets the needs of potential customers.
Customer Support/Service: To collect feedback, address customer complaints, and ensure the product meets user expectations.
Finance: To manage the product budget, understand profitability, and ensure the product's financial viability.
Operations: For logistical considerations, especially if the product involves physical goods or complex deployment processes.
Legal: To handle any compliance, regulatory, or intellectual property concerns.
Research and Analytics: To gather data on product usage, market trends, and user behavior.
Business Development/Partnerships: If the product requires integration with third-party services or forging partnerships for growth.
Human Resources: Especially in larger organizations, for team building, hiring, and other personnel-related aspects of managing a product team.
But guess what? It does not end here. The engagement of a product manager is broad, extending across many facets of a business.
We know that the PM's ability to communicate, prioritize, and make data-driven decisions is critical to the success of the product and, by extension, the company. Because of this, PMs need to operate in a further level and beyond their own organization.
Product Manager influence outside the company
Product Managers not only operate within the confines of their organizations but also frequently engage with external entities for various reasons. Here's how they interact externally:
Vendors and Third-party Services: PMs might deal with external vendors for specific tools, platforms, or services that integrate with or complement the product. They evaluate the offerings, negotiate terms, and ensure that these tools/services align with the product's objectives.
Strategic Partnerships: PMs might establish collaborations with other companies to enhance the product's value proposition. This could be through integrations, co-marketing efforts, or co-development of features.
Market Research and Analyst Firms: PMs might engage with market research firms to gather industry trends, competitor analyses, and other insights that can shape the product's direction.
Customer Visits and Interviews: Direct interaction with key customers or potential clients can provide invaluable insights. PMs might visit clients to understand their pain points, gather feedback, or showcase upcoming features.
Industry Events and Conferences: PMs often represent their product or company at industry events. They network, attend talks to stay updated on trends, and might even give presentations about their product.
Regulatory Bodies: If the product operates in a regulated industry (e.g., finance, healthcare), PMs might need to interact with regulatory agencies to ensure compliance.
Beta Testers and Early Adopters: Before launching new features or products, PMs might engage with a group of early users to gather feedback and iterate on the offering.
Competitors: While direct interactions might be limited, understanding competitors is crucial. PMs might engage in competitor analyses, attend product launches, or even have formal meetings in cases of potential mergers, acquisitions, or collaborations.
Investors and Stakeholders: In startups or companies seeking external funding, PMs might interact with potential investors to showcase the product's value, roadmap, and market potential.
User Communities and Forums: Engaging with online communities or forums relevant to the product can be a rich source of feedback and can help in building brand loyalty.
Licensing and IP Agreements: If the product involves patented technologies or needs to license certain features from other companies, PMs might be involved in discussions around intellectual property and licensing agreements.
Consultants and External Experts: For niche products or industries, PMs might engage with external consultants or experts to gain deeper insights or validate certain decisions.
Media and PR: When launching a significant feature or a new product, PMs might collaborate with PR teams and media outlets for press releases, interviews, and other promotional activities.
Start driving impact and influence in and outside your organization
Inside the Company:
Stakeholder Collaboration: Build strong relationships with teams across the company, from engineering to sales, ensuring alignment and collaboration.
Data-Driven Decisions: Use data to back up product decisions, demonstrating the value and potential impact of ideas.
Effective Communication: Clearly articulate the product vision, strategy, and progress to ensure everyone is on the same page.
Customer Advocacy: Be the voice of the customer within the organization, ensuring their needs are addressed.
Continuous Learning: Stay updated with industry trends and best practices to bring innovative ideas to the table.
Outside the Company:
Networking: Engage with other product managers, industry leaders, and professionals. Attend conferences, workshops, and meetups.
Thought Leadership: Share insights, write articles, or give talks on platforms like Substack, Medium, LinkedIn, or industry-specific websites.
Mentorship: Offer mentorship to budding PMs or those interested in the role, helping to shape the future of the profession.
Active Participation: Join or contribute to product management communities, forums, or groups.
Feedback Gathering: Engage with customers, partners, and external stakeholders for feedback, ensuring the product aligns with external market needs.
Collaboration: Partner with other companies, institutions, or organizations on shared initiatives or products.
In Summary
As you can see, Product Managers are crucial players in both the internal and external ecosystems of a company:
Internally, they bridge gaps across various departments, from engineering to legal, ensuring that a product is not only developed but also aligned with the company's overarching objectives. This requires them to possess a diverse skill set, from market research to strategic visioning.
Externally, their influence spans interactions with vendors, regulatory bodies, competitors, and more, highlighting their essential role in forging strategic partnerships, compliance, and understanding market trends.
Their expansive and multi-dimensional roles emphasize the importance of continuous learning, networking, and active collaboration. Whether defining the direction of a product, engaging with stakeholders, or driving innovation, the PM is undeniably a key piece in the corporate world, underscoring their profound impact on both the success of the product and the company at large.
This is a great guide. Thanks! I use similar graphs to represent areas of growth in my skills.
A very good overview, Elena!
On a related note, I wrote about which communication channel is most suitable for a couple of situations: https://www.leadinginproduct.com/p/choosing-the-best-communication-channel