Product managers are the army generals of your organization. They are responsible for the overall success or failure of individual initiatives, and they bring a diverse set of skills and experiences. Not only must they be able to ensure that a project stays on track and achieves its goals, but they must have the perspective to set those goals in the first place and ensure they align with your organization's business objectives. In fact, a good way to think about the job of a product manager is to translate abstract business goals (e.g. "increase retention by 10%") into concrete products and features (e.g. a loyalty program) . Not only that, they also need to be able to see those products and features through to completion. This means they need a combination of higher organizational skills and what we sometimes think of as soft skills, like communication, empathy and leadership. Product managers are a critical part of your organization's success, and a good product manager can mean the difference between a high-quality product that is delivered on time and on budget, and one that drags on or stale. completely collapses. In this article, we'll look at what a good product manager can do for your organization and give you a solid framework for writing a job that will attract the right type of product manager for your needs. What exactly does a product manager do? No child grows up dreaming of becoming a product manager. So where do they come from and what is their purpose in an organization? More than most, product managers can take unusual and sometimes circuitous paths to their work. Indeed, product management sits at the intersection of at least three different disciplines: engineering , business , and user experience .

We can look at each of them when we walk through some of the specific responsibilities of a product manager. Product managers work with management to identify business goals . From there, the product manager defines the problem they're trying to solve (eg, how can we drive more app installs?). Next, the product manager must define the product requirements that can solve this problem in a cost-effective and technically feasible way. This phase of the work consists of collecting data, largely, from market research, user testing, analysis, interviews, etc. From there, the product manager consults with their developers and executives to  Greece Phone Number List  create a product roadmap that enables ideation, iteration, and testing. And that's all before the UX designers or developers get to work. Once that starts, the job of the product manager changes dramatically. During the development cycle, they are responsible for the daily workflow, keeping things on schedule , resolving issues as they arise, and avoiding scope drifts. . Successful product management requires focus and exceptional communication skills more than technical ability. That said, even if they aren't coders or designers, this part of the job requires a product manager to know enough about each discipline to be able to translate the needs of their team members to each other and to direction. Define your product management needs Your main consideration when hiring a product manager should be to find someone who has experience with the type of product you want to create. A product manager with tons of experience managing highly technical backend optimization products will have slightly different skills than someone who enjoys building user-facing mobile apps. Beyond that, you also need to be clear about what you need from your product manager. Obviously, the best time to hire a product manager is before you've even started working on a product, but that's not always the case. Like a good product manager, your first step is to define your needs . Try to make a list of what you need the most: is it someone who can help you define the scope of the product itself?

Anyone with experience in agile development and iterative design? Someone who can step in and do some coding or UX design if a project is falling behind? Writing a Product Manager Project Description Once you have a clear idea of ​​what you're looking for in a product manager, you're ready to write a job posting. The quality of your message can have a significant impact on time-to-hire and quality of interested talent, so it's worth investing time and thought into crafting a persuasive and detailed message. Add as many details as possible. This is where you should say if you're looking for someone to manage consumer-facing features for web and mobile apps or someone to build high-quality backend reporting tools. Include a clear description of what they will do for the project and which teams or functions they will work most closely with, mention the product management or communication tools your team prefers, the availability you expect from them and, of course, your budget. The key here is to give enough context so that you can get a meaningful proposal from an interested project manager. Will they have a certain number of things to do daily or weekly, or will they need to book specific times for you? In other words, is there an inbox full of emails they need to respond to every day, or do they need to be available to respond to messages in real time? Sample Project Overview Sample Project Overview Below, we've put together an example of what a project description might look like. Keep in mind that many people use the term "job description", but a full job description is only necessary if you are looking for an employee. If you think you want an employee, check out Upwork Payroll. When hiring a freelancer as an independent contractor, all you usually need is a statement of work, job offer, or other document outlining the job.