A product manager investigates, selects, and develops products for an organization, performing the activities of product management.
A product manager considers numerous factors such as intended demographic, the products offered by the competition, and how well the product fits with the company's business model. Generally, a product manager manages one or more tangible products. However, the term may be used to describe a person who manages intangible products, such as music, information, and services.
A product manager's role in tangible goods industries is similar to a program director's role in service industries.
Diverse interpretations regarding the role of the product manager are the norm. The product manager title is often used in many ways to describe drastically different duties and responsibilities. Even within the high-tech industry where product management is better defined, the product manager's job description varies widely among companies. This is due to tradition and intuitive interpretations by different individuals.
In the financial services industry (banking, insurance etc.), product managers manage products (for example, credit card portfolios), their profit and loss, and also determine the business development strategy.
In a Scrum environment, a Product Manager is also referred to as the Product Owner, and usually has the main role of representing the product to the customer. Some of the responsibilities of the Product Owner include marketing of the product and analysis of the competition.
In some companies, the product manager also acts as a:
- Product marketing manager — may perform all outbound marketing activities in the older sense of the term
- Project manager — may perform all activities related to schedule and resource management
- Program manager — may perform activities related to schedule, resource, and cross-functional execution
Famous quotes containing the words product and/or manager:
“Poetry, whose material is language, is perhaps the most human and least worldly of the arts, the one in which the end product remains closest to the thought that inspired it.... Of all things of thought, poetry is the closest to thought, and a poem is less a thing than any other work of art ...”
—Hannah Arendt (1906–1975)
“Nothing could his enemies do but it rebounded to his infinite advantage,—that is, to the advantage of his cause.... No theatrical manager could have arranged things so wisely to give effect to his behavior and words. And who, think you, was the manager? Who placed the slave-woman and her child, whom he stooped to kiss for a symbol, between his prison and the gallows?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)