Product Management Best Practices

Today, product managers play a crucial role in any modern business. Business owners now recognise the role as a cornerstone for the success of digital products the business is working on.

Product development is a complex process. From research to design and delivery, a product team has plenty of complex paths and decisions to take before any product can be considered minimum viable. Product management also extends to cover other key business areas product marketing, data analytics research and validation. There’s also commercialisation and to consider before, and even after, any product is in market.

It is well known that a product manager wears many hats at any given time, working on a product. From strategist to peacemaker to growth hacker… in other words, they must be specialist-generalists. It’s easy to see why a Product Management is such an important role, as it carries so many different responsibilities.

Here are some effective ways down the path of product excellence:

Have A Strategy

This is probably the most obvious thing to do, but often sidelined. When it comes to strategy, have a collaborative approach. Consider business and product strategic goals and never neglect customer needs.

Strategy involves having a plan. That plan maps out where you want to go and what will get you there. This isn’t about features or functions this is about a high-level direction for the alignment of the business and its employees.

Often goals can be short, associated to delivery – 2-week sprint goals. They are most often quarterly and tracked by OKR’s and at times even yearly when dealing with large projects

The path to achieving your goals and objectives is through a series of initiatives, experiments, and growth hacks. Successes are often scattered with failure, so don’t be afraid to take calculated risks to reap the rewards.

CAC/LTV

Understand growth is a result of user revenue over time being greater than the costs associated to acquiring your users. Map out your acquisition strategy and model your costs whilst improving your ability to grow organically. Optimise your product to fix the leaky bucket, whether that’s in acquisition or retention. Hold onto your users whilst you strive for new ones. Make note of the levers of growth and leverage them for continued success. Fail fast but not often.

Understand The Customer Journey

The problems and opportunities don’t start and end within the remit of your product. Empathise, put yourself in the shoes of your customers. If customers aren’t finding the product, they’re not buying your product. Leverage opportunities to be discovered and engage your target market. Ensure that your value proposition is clearly communicated and the product is desirable and usable. Analytics is key along every path of this journey; you must measure and learn to grow.

Know your customers.

Aligning the company’s objective is a must as a product manager. However alignment with the right things is key. Ensure that your customer needs and wants are addressed in any initiatives on the way to achieving company objectives. Have a clear message, you can’t be everything to everyone. Find our segment, know your cohorts and personas and solve real problems. Keep your loyal customers through your pivots and paths to growth. Make sure the product represents the values of your company. If you do not, it’ll be obvious to the customers through your product.