Contents
Nikita Blinkov, voice assistant product manager Marusya from VK, talks about how product managers in IT make our daily lives better and how to start a career in this area
Who is a product manager
A product manager in any field creates products that help users effectively solve everyday problems. A down-to-earth (in every sense of the word) example: a product manager of a company that produces choppers makes it so that with the help of this product any summer resident can quickly, conveniently, beautifully, inexpensively (underline as necessary) dig a garden.
If we talk about the IT industry and specifically about the sphere of voice technologies, then the task of a product manager is to help users with one command to make the smart speaker turn on the right song, find out the weather or the right recipe while cooking, etc. In other projects, product managers help people move from point A to point B, buy apartments, listen to audiobooks and podcasts, collect playlists, study online. In essence, they create opportunities for the user experience to be better than before. In addition, product managers in IT form new habits in users.
As you can see, within the same industry, the tasks of a product manager are very different depending on the project in which he works. But there is something that unites the work of these specialists – they all manage changes and test many, many hypotheses. And this is a pleasant specificity of the work of a product manager in the IT field – the ability to test product changes on different user groups and evaluate the results of these tests, so that the most effective option goes into production and a lot of resources are not spent on implementing unclaimed functionality.
Areas of responsibility
A product manager can be called an intermediary between the users of a product and the teams that work on it. He oversees several processes at once and must understand at least the basic principles of each.
Stage 1. Analytics
Before launching a new feature, you need to analyze the needs and expectations of users so that it meets them. For example, while working on the skill of answering questions in Marus, we found out that people do not listen to long answers (by the way, this applies not only to voice assistants, but also to live interlocutors), and we set ourselves the task of teaching her to answer short, but at the same time interesting .
Stage 2. Process Design
After understanding the needs of the audience, you can start designing new functionality. Design here does not mean the interface of the product, but the management of user experience. In the case of a taxi ordering service, for example, this is the process of moving from the moment the application is launched to getting out of the car, and in the previous example with Marusya, interaction with the voice assistant from the moment the question is formulated to receiving the correct (both in meaning and in length) answer .
Stage 3. Research
This stage consists of two parts – qualitative and quantitative. In the course of qualitative research, it is important to understand exactly how users will use the new functions/application/product/features. And the reality does not always coincide with the expectations of the product manager and other specialists. The results of the quantitative study show how the use will occur en masse.
Stage 4. Development
At this stage, in fact, the magic of creating a new product happens. In doing so, you need to take into account everything that was found out in the previous stages, and internal restrictions, such as a small budget or lack of technical capabilities.
Stage 5. Promotion
In order for people to start using a new feature, they need to talk about it and demonstrate its relevance and usefulness, that is, to form that very new user habit. At this stage, specialists in PR and marketing come into play. For example, while promoting the ability of the voice assistant to answer questions, we compiled a list of unusual questions like “Why freeze the puck?” – and offered users to find out the answers to them.
The role of the product manager in all this is to prioritize based on data, not on their own opinion, that is, decide which features to implement first, and then clearly and clearly explain to the specialists involved at each stage what, how and why. need to do. Therefore, in addition to the need to at least superficially understand all the processes, a product manager needs developed communication skills: products are made by people, and you need to communicate with them.
Performance Metrics
The main metric that reflects the performance of a product manager in the IT industry is user retention. The rest differ depending on the product. For example, for voice assistants, this could be the number of requests and the quality of responses.
As for evaluating the effectiveness of the planned changes, the main rule here is this: if, according to the test results, a product/service/feature does not provide an increase in key metrics, then most likely they are useless and it is not worth spending resources on their launch and further support.
How to become a product manager
Product management often comes from other areas of IT. Usually – from those who are involved in the work on the product: analytics, design, research, development and marketing. Former developers are especially appreciated here, because when developing an IT product, you need to have at least a minimal technical background. And this is the first advice to everyone who wants to become a product manager – study the materiel.
The second tip is to take good educational courses. It is possible to determine that the program will provide the necessary basic knowledge and skills according to several criteria:
- duration of classes – at least 20 hours,
- practical tasks,
- teachers with experience in the field of product management, who share their experience, and not just industry cases,
- positive feedback from former students.
The third tip is to look for free opportunities to upgrade your skills. Many IT companies that are interested in strong product specialists launch their own programs and intensives – and often do it for free. For example, we have a separate educational project for those who already have experience in product management – the MADE Academy of Product Managers. It is taught by experts from VK and other companies that successfully develop products with a multi-million audience.