What do product managers do?

With over 6 years of experience as a product manager across different industries and projects, I’ve developed a hands-on approach to product development.

I believe working closely with engineering teams is key to building products that hit the mark for both users and business goals. My approach focuses on open communication, data-backed decisions, and recognizing the technical challenges along the way.

The goal is to create an environment where innovation flourishes, technical skills are appreciated, and continuous improvement becomes second nature. This way of working has helped drive product success while keeping engineering efforts aligned and supported.

I believe there are 4 stages to do so:-

Pre-development: Setting the Stage for Efficient Development

At this stage, I focus on giving engineers a solid, well-researched foundation to build on:

1. Dive into user research and market analysis to set clear, achievable product goals.
2. Put together detailed, organized PRDs (Product Requirements Documents) with clear acceptance criteria.
3. Set up cross-functional meetings to chat through possible roadblocks and check technical feasibility.
4. Build a strategic roadmap that balances tech debt, new features, changes, and other priorities. I also team up with architects to make sure the product vision aligns with our technical strategy.

The goal of all this upfront work is to minimize last-minute pivots during development and give engineers everything they need to make smart technical decisions from the start.

During Development: Facilitating Smooth Execution

During development, my goal is to make things easier for engineers so they can focus on what they do best:

1. Be the go-between for stakeholders and the engineering team, keeping expectations in check and prioritizing requests.
2. Use a relaxed version of agile with bi-weekly “alignment sessions” to sort out cross-team challenges.
3. Team up with QA to create solid test plans that match what the product needs.
4. Keep scope creep under control by weighing any changes against what we’ve already agreed on.
5. Help the team make smart, data-driven decisions by running A/B tests and reviewing the results together.

I just want to ensure engineers have what they need to do great work, knowing it’s all in line with what users want and the business needs.

Post-development: Gathering Actionable Insights

After the initial development phase, I shift my focus to gathering user feedback and turning it into actionable insights for the engineering team:

1. Look at user behavior and feedback to spot areas where we can boost performance.
2. Run regular “product health checks” to figure out which bugs and technical improvements to tackle first.
3. Team up with support to track and group common issues so we can fix them systematically.
4. Keep analyzing the product to keep improving how we work and build.
5. Keep documentation up to date so it’s easy to share knowledge and onboard new folks.

The goal is to make sure we’re always learning and improving, so the product and user experience keep getting better.

Growth/Scale: Enabling Sustainable Expansion

During the growth phase, I focus on making sure we scale smoothly without unnecessary headaches:

1. Partner with architects to plan to manage scale
2. Spot chances to modularize and reuse components to make development easier and faster.
3. Work with the data science team to add analytics and machine learning features that make the product even better.
4. Explore potential partnerships and integrations that can give us an edge.
5. Invest in tools and infrastructure that make life easier for developers and other teams.

The idea is to grow sustainably by balancing new features with keeping our tech foundation solid and future-proof.

Throughout every phase, I aim to be a real partner to the engineering team. I believe that by offering clear direction, handling outside pressures, and always standing up for both user needs and technical quality, we can build awesome products that are just as satisfying to create as they are to use.