2nd Apr 2019
Our third-year students were fortunate to recently have Louise Bernstein from Hubspot in to speak on the discipline of Product Management within the tech industry and ‘Why Product Managers Exist?’
She explained how the role requirement of a Product Manager is to create the perfect environment for ideas to form and for solutions to problems present themselves effectively. Engineers and UX designers will solve the problems but the Product Manager will essentially facilitate this by aligning the different teams from idea conception right through to product launch and sales. Product Managers are responsible for setting a product vision, defining a product strategy and developing a roadmap to meet the successful implementation of the strategy.
In a digital society that now dictates that there is no longer room for complex applications (remember we when just ‘put up’ with clunky technology!) even large companies build things that are not a success. ‘A product manager needs to know enough about all departments to be dangerous!’ Louise says, and needs to ensure they stay up to date in all disciplines (including sales and marketing, engineering, design) to be up to date in their own discipline.
Louise went on to highlight the requirement of prioritising customer intelligence gathering in the product management cycle, including having empathy with customer base through observations, talking, surveys etc. Other key skills required of Product Managers are the ability to work with other teams to ensure the product meets the customer need and the ability to shape ideas.
