What makes a great product manager?

In my journey to become better I am learning what makes a great product manager. That is probably the most important part about what I do. How do I create great products that solve problems for customers.

What is a product manager?

The official definition:

A product manager is a professional role that is responsible for the development of products for an organization, known as the practice of product management. Product managers own the business strategy behind a product, specify its functional requirements, and generally manage the launch of features.

However I think that most definitions are fuzzy and it results in fuzzy thinking. If you are defining a word, you should never use the words that you are defining. If you are defining Product Manager, you shouldn’t use the words “Product” or “Manage”. It’s like saying: what is a product manager?

“It is a manager who manages products”.

To be clear on a definition is an extremely important starting point – you need to define it exactly, clearly and concisely. Often many arguments and disagreements actually come from a place where the definitions are not clearly defined or agreed or concise. Often two different definitions can result in two completely different conclusions.

So my definition is below:

My definition: A product manager is someone who makes something that is to be sold or used.

What makes a great product manager?

A great product manager is solely measured by his ability to create great products. So it is necessary to understand what makes a great product. I wrote about that here.

Basically,

A product is something that is created to solve a problem. How great the product is depends on how big a problem it is, and how well it solves it. If there are two products that solve this equally, then the one with the bigger market scale is better.

So you can use this formula to work out how good the product is:

ProductQuality = (ProblemScale X Solution) X MarketScale

And there are important definitions you need to make:
Problem Scale =
– What exactly is the problem?
– What are the alternatives?

Solution =
– What exactly is the solution?
– How well does it solve the problem?

Market =
– How big is the market?
– How often is it used

A great product manager is someone who creates great products.

So they need to have the following skills:
1) – Understanding of the problem
2) – Ability to create a solution
3) – Ability to bring the solution to market

What are the core skills for a product manager? 

Therefore the cores skills for a product manager are:

1) – Understanding of the problem – A product manager needs to deeply understand the user it was designed for and be able to emphasise with the user. They need to be able to clearly and accurately define the problem.

2) – Ability to create a solution. They need to be able to be able to create a solution to the problem. There are many different ways to come up with a solution, so there is not a fixed set of skills needed.  They need to have, or have access to, the following skills:
– Problem Solving skills – imagination – ability to generate possible solutions, Visualisation skills
– Execution Skills – the ability to get things done, to attract and utilise the necessary resources to implement the solution
– Testing and re-iteration – the ability

3) – Ability to bring the solution to market

What skills do I think a product manager should have?

I think it’s better to be open minded about what a product manager should have. There are many ways to to come to a solution, and many ways to get things done.

In my experience I think there are two important skills for a product manager:

1. People skills – I think its impossible to create a great product on your own in 2021. People skills is one of the most important skills. It can also help to plug any gaps in the following skills. With the right people, you actually don’t need any other skills. understanding and looking after and motivating people. The ability to work with people. Recruitment and being able to recruit people to join a team. The ability to pull people together so they can benefit and the product can get created is extremely important.
2. Discipline and hard work – having the vision and sticking to it, and not giving up when it gets hard.

The following are skills that you can have, I think it would be much better if you have them yourself, but you don’t necessarily need them if you have attracted people people to your team who have these skills.

• Imagination – the ability to  identify and think about ways to solve problems
• Technical skills – being able to understand technology and how it works, technological processes
• Financial management – the ability to track finances and manage financial resources well
• Desire & Enjoyment – I think being deeply motivated to create products and to find a solution to the problem is important.
• The ability to learn – being able to learn new things is very helpful because there are always new things to learn.
• Focus – focussing on the most important things and not other things that are not so important.
• Taste – being able to have a good taste and appreciation of design is important.

What do you think makes a great product manager?

I think the ideal product manager is someone who is great with people, and open minded, and full stack – they can think and understand many different disciplines. They are not a specialist but a generalist. They may have a specialty in one specific area but they have a wide range of skills and can see things in many ways. They are creative, and fast at executing and have high standards and good discipline.

Do you agree or disagree? Are there any things I am missing?