Avoid these commonly made mistakes, to grow your business.
While a corporate sector has some age old key sectors playing vital roles, like – marketing, sales, finance etc., the ‘product’ function is yet evolving and fairly new. With a rapid growth in the past two decades, the links that have spread out from a product team to the various other sectors are quite crucial in the ‘make or break’ of the overall success of a companies ROI.
Renowned product expert and founder of ProductTank, Martin Eriksson broadly summarized the product management as a cross between business, technology and the end users understanding; however, the role of a successful product manager goes beyond just these logistics.
Much like the head of a company, the product manager not only links these experiences, but also handles multiple critical pointers including – defining goals and success of a product, overall outcome of the product as well as keeping the motivation going on for different teams. Not only is the product department there to handle the overall cycle, but also to identify the user needs, market research, define an image for the product, keep an eye out on the competition, structuring the highlights of the product, to name a few.
Let’s agree, the market is flooded with new products every minute, and the competition is quite steep. With such heavy responsibility, there is little room for error, because a lot is riding on the product manager.
- No pre conceived solutions – while it’s important to have a road map and plan for the product cycle and team to base their functions on, being too stringent on it will only restrict one into a more pre decided & confined operation. The market is ever changing, and plays a huge part in the success, so keep both eye and mind open to changes and new development.
- Fuse innovation with customer needs – the need of the customer is a primary factor when designing a product strategy, that being said, the innovation aspect is not something a customer will provide. The role of a good organization and a strong product team is to add the creative zing of innovation to what the customer needs; in order to come up with an extraordinary (and sometimes new) product.
- Simplicity and usability is the key – technology and the complicated nuances are a big flex, agreed, but what purpose does it solve into easing the life of your users/ TGA? While those in the industry or a niche crowd of tech lovers might love it, the most crucial question to ask is that – how would your product be accepted by the end user, when it comes to simplifying their life.
- Features, features and features – in continuation to the above mentioned point, it’s important to keep in mind that the competence and the features of your product are aptly highlighted. The role and responsibilities of a product manager are multi faced, so it’s important not to miss out on clearly and strongly putting across the best features that makes your product stand out from the rest, in the market.
- No room for communication gap – as a product manager, your role is not only confined to your team, but to other sectors as well, especially in large companies. Hence, the chances of communication gap are fairly understandable, but can lead to long term issues or set going in the wrong direction. Many a times, with such multiple networks, things do get lost or misinterpreted, so as a good product manager, one needs to ensure that extra attention be paid to avoid these gaps. Keeping detailed guidelines for the team(s) or having a pre-planned strategy in place can make things a lot easier.
With an ever evolving industry, the list may go on, but the crucial part is to ensure that the above mentioned points are kept in mind, and of course remember that your user is the one that will have the final use and say in the success of a product. Good luck!