The story of modern Product Management can be traced back to 1931 when Neil H. McElroy from Procter & Gamble wrote an internal memo for the company about a new style of management utilizing the so-called “Brand Men”. But the role hasn’t started truly thriving until the 2010s when the IT world began implementing it more often in their agile environments.
In 2016, 7% of the Harvard Business School's graduates decided to find a job in Product Management. The introductory course at the school, Product Management 101, received then 3x more applications than available spots.
At the same time, however, according to a report by 280 Group, only 29.3% of executive teams fully understand what is the value of Product Management. This means the other 70,7% of companies don’t properly utilize their PMs.
How to make sure your business follows the smaller but more prospective group of companies? In our guide below, we answer all the important questions, including what does it take and how long does it take to become a Product Manager that delivers great results, and what is the actual value of Product Management in the IT industry.
Main IT Product Manager responsibilities
An IT Product Manager oversees the whole process of product development — from the first drafts to adding new features in the post-launch period. But what does it actually mean? To help you understand better the role of a PM in your team, we listed below the most important IT Product Manager responsibilities.
- Developing a long-term vision and strategy for the product — preparing a roadmap.
- Deciding what features the product should have.
- Curating new ideas.
- Defining ways of implementing the requirements of users, stakeholders, or other teams.
- Assessing the pricing model.
- Customer analytics (direct conversations with customers, A/B testing).
- Data analytics.
- Improving cross-team cooperation.
- Presenting results to stakeholders and all employees.
- If separate Product Owners are present — working with them on finding the best ways to develop the product.
Product Manager vs Product Owner
The names might sound similar, but Product Manager and Product Owner are actually two different roles. Yes, in many cases an IT Product Manager can quite easily transition to being a Product Owner — and the other way around. In fact, according to a report by 280 Group, in 70% of agile businesses, the majority of Product Managers serve also as Product Owners. However, a company can have both of these roles implemented in its structure, and therefore, understanding the differences between them is crucial.
First and foremost, a Product Owner is strictly linked to a single Scrum team, alongside a group of developers and a Scrum Master. He works with the backlog for the specific product that this team aims to develop — this can be a completely independent app, but also just a major feature in complex software.
On the other hand, an IT Product Manager works much more holistically. They oversee the whole process of creating a product and make sure cross-team cooperation is going well, looking not only at what developers do but also designers or marketing experts.
When a Product Owner owns the backlog, an IT Product Manager owns the product’s roadmap. When a Product Owner is focused on short and mid-term goals and manages Scrum sprints, an IT Product Manager has to think about the long-term results, optimizing the strategy. Product Manager is also more externally focused, paying more attention to discovering the exact needs of customers. Product Owner later translates these needs into specific tasks for their respective team.
Crucial skills for IT Product Managers
As a person between the tech teams and customers, an IT Product Manager must possess a specific combination of hard and soft skills. We list the most important ones below.
- Relevant technical knowledge
According to a report by Alpha, only 5% of Product Managers know how to code. Does this mean that technical knowledge is actually important for an IT Product Manager? Yes and no. The same report states that 60% of surveyed PMs believe that more technical training would help them in their work. Our suggestion, then, is for you to try to find an IT Product Manager who at least has some experience in working with teams utilizing similar technologies to yours. Such a match can be based on programming languages, frameworks, or other technical solutions being used at your company.
- Data analytics skills
These are crucial for the proper assessment of customers’ requirements. An IT Product Manager should be able to explain their specific needs to the people responsible for data mining (if the company is small and doesn’t have a data scientist, this is usually done by back-end developers), as well as do research themselves, for example by running A/B and manual tests.
- Experience with agile
Your IT Product Manager will most likely work within an agile environment, probably with Scrum additionally implemented. They should, therefore, be already experienced with these methodologies and able to coach others on the best agile practices.
- Expert time management
Being an IT Product Manager means being in a constant rush in order to align with everyone involved in the product development process. Expert time and self-management are, then, crucial in the role.
- Researcher attitude
An important, but sometimes overlooked, part of an IT Product Manager’s role is always looking for new sudden opportunities for the product. They might require changing something in the initial strategy, but finding and following those small clues might give you a significant boost against your competitors.
Assessing the experience of an IT Product Manager
When you decide to hire an IT Product Manager, look closely at their job history. They should have already worked as a Product Manager, but additional experience in other but similar roles is also useful. These roles can be Product Owner (most often), IT Project Manager, or even a dev team member.
Look also for candidates who worked with similar products and/or within your industry. Such experience means they already have some understanding of your audience and knowledge of solutions that proved to be successful within your niche.
Top IT Product Manager job interview questions
When running a job interview with your potential IT Product Managers, you should aim to ask questions that will help you understand their way of thinking while also checking their business skills. A good interview should bring a clear answer to whether the candidate is a good fit for your business or you should pass on them.
Here are our favorite job interview questions to dig into the mind of an IT Product Manager:
- How do you approach working with a team led by a Product Owner and supported by a Scrum Master?
- How do you assess the level of cooperation in a cross-team initiative?
- How do you help in motivating cross-team cooperation?
- What are your go-to digital tools in an IT Product Manager role?
- What part of being a Product Manager is the most enjoyable for you? Why do you enjoy this specific area the most?
- Do you think technical knowledge is necessary for the role of an IT Product Manager? Why?
- Could you tell us about a situation when you failed as an IT Product Manager? What did you learn from it?
- How do you gain credibility and authority in a new team you start working with?
- How do you approach developing a pricing model for a product?
- What do you think might be the biggest challenges in our industry in the next 5 years?
Who else do you need to deliver an amazing product?
An experienced IT Product Manager is of great value to your company, allowing you to optimize all the processes in order to deliver top results. But to follow the strategy of the IT Product Manager, you need also other experts — from web developers and graphic designers to data scientists, Product Owners, and Scrum Masters.
Ideamotive can help you hire all these people fast. Thanks to our vast network of top IT talents, you can get easily connected to the professionals you need. We take pride in matching our partners with only the perfectly tailored experts, every time taking into consideration the company’s profile, product specification, and any other requirement you might have.
Want to enjoy the fastest way to hire great IT talents? Then contact us today.
