Job Memo Final

 Product Manager

When you first hear the words "Product Manager", you might be wondering “What is that?” Do they manage products around the local Targets and restock them? Are they a manager of a business that produces fruits, vegetables, and other delicacies? Although those are very good guesses, I want to briefly explain the role and the expectations of the job title. 

A product manager is responsible for shaping a product’s vision, defining its features, tracking success metrics, and coordinating with various stakeholders—such as designers, engineers, and marketers—to bring that vision to life.  Product managers work in various industries, and the product itself can be tangible (physical) or intangible (such as software). Yes, this sounds very vague and open-ended, but I want to touch on some points that will help explain and narrow the specificities of the role with some examples. 

Three main points summarize the day-to-day duties of a product manager: 

- Strategic Planner 

- Prototyper 

- Optimizer 

Strategic Planner

As a product manager, we need to first plan our objectives, tasks, and ultimately how we envision our finished product. For example, our product was a robotic food truck that created pizza, and we needed an app that allowed consumers to order online, view their pizza being made in real time, and a loyalty program that engaged with the consumers. 

We needed to gather insights on what consumers needed to see in an app's interface, as well as any loyalty program benefits, and we had to generate a survey and conduct 500+ real-life interviews to understand a customer's perspective. Afterward, we started to plan our objectives and goals for our product, based on consumer choices. 

Prototyper

Now imagine walking in a grocery store and seeing how different cereal boxes are of different colors, different labels, and conveniently placed at a variety of shelf levels. This is an example of prototyping, where product managers must ultimately choose the most eye-catching, unique designs to capture customer's attention. 

My role as a prototype was to take customer feedback from our surveys and create a plethora of prototypes based on our planned criteria. In prototyping, quantity is more valuable than quality, and I had to generate multiple designs and unique ideas. 

After prototyping, the product cycle repeats. I had to take the prototypes for our app, gain feedback via surveys from random consumers and company management, and choose the best fit for our strategic plans. As I mentioned earlier, quantity is very important in this step, as you can have many ideas (quantity) and eventually turn them into a more premium, finished product (quality). 

Optimizer 

Now after repeating the cycle of a strategic planner and prototype, the optimizer is the crucial last step. Sometimes, great prototypes can be too idealistic and may not perform well in real life, and we need to test them and optimize any issues with the product. 

In my case, we drafted our prototypes and began implementing the software changes on our company app. However, sometimes certain elements are unable to be processed, and we need to backtrack, and either revert our changes or find a new way to implement our vision. 

Regardless, being an optimizer is a key step for a product manager to be successful. Think of it this way: the planning and prototypes are like building a ship, but an optimizer checks to see if the ship will float. 

Nonetheless, each of these three points is very important when becoming a product manager. 

Readability Scores: 

Passive Sentences: 0%

Flesch Reading Ease: 47.2

Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level: 12