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3 Key Areas of Product Management

3 Key Areas of Product Management

time-clock5 min read
calendar31 May 2015

The rise of online and consumer facing organisations has resulted in a shift in product management over the last 6 years. We live in a data driven society, you might not see it but data is everywhere and it’s only going to get bigger. Here we explore the three key areas of product management that are significant for today’s product managers.

1. Consumer focus

Understanding how consumers use your product is a vital component to a successful long-term strategic plan. More recently we have seen organisations turn their strategy towards consumers and focusing on the customer journey, resulting in product managers working even more closely with UX professionals. 

Now more than ever, there is a focus on B2C product management, with a focus on UX to drive certain products and lines to optimise the buying and transaction process. It is key for product managers to ensure that the user experience a consumer is facing is consistent throughout all digital products. 

2. Data

Good product managers will monitor data trends continuously and should be very data centered in their approach. Consumer facing organisations will encourage examination of web analytics and conversation rates as performance indicators for product managers. As a result it is common for product managers to study click rates to discover what is successful and what can be improved whilst working in an agile environment.

Product Managers are also now the driving force behind customer and user experience. It is essential to measure and report on the effectiveness of product iterations and launches in order to make effective data-driven decision making. Without effective and vigorous analysis products will not improve and instead remain static.   

3. The future lies in technical product management

As companies look to maximise their online business we are seeing more technical product managers coming from a technical background or who are technically focused. Typically speaking, such candidates will have a software engineer degree or computer science/information systems degree or may have even been a developer.

This brings a sense of understanding of the software development lifecycle into the team as technical product managers are able to roadmap their product or software development lifecycle more confidently.

The product management job market is certainly thriving with all elements of the Digital team synergising to create deeper customer connections and an overall better experience for the end user. This approach will certainly aid product managers to innovate and manage the product lifecycle.